Surrey now has a second urgent and primary care centre, in Newton.
Located at 6830 King George Blvd., and operated by Fraser Health, this new centre provides same-day care for people needing help within 12 to 24 hours but who don’t require an emergency department. This includes patients with sprains, minor cuts and burns, high fevers and minor infections.
Premier John Horgan noted that some 90,000 people in Surrey don’t have a family doctor.
“For too many people the struggle to find a doctor has now been relieved,” he said, “because of these community endeavours.”
“The urgent and primary care centre we’re announcing today will alleviate a great deal of pressure on those families.”
He said this second centre would have been opened sooner, but for the pandemic. It opened Tuesday.
“It’s going to be initially for 44 hours a week and by the end of July we’re hoping that it will be seven days a week, 12 hours a day,” Horgan told the Now-Leader. “This is going to greatly relieve the pressure, again, increasing pressure on Surrey Memorial and provides this alternative approach to health care to the people of Surrey.”
It’s currently open Monday to Friday from 5 p.m. to 9 p.m. and from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. on weekends.
Horgan said Surrey’s first such centre, opened November 2018 in Whalley, has already served over 29,000 patients, “and that’s extraordinary.”
“Those are 29,000 patients that did not clog the emergency room at Surrey Memorial Hospital.”
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Horgan said these centres have urgent health care practitioners, RPNs and a “whole host of other health care providers” like dietitians, social workers “and a network behind those that are on the front lines, to make sure people get the services that they need.”
“It’s not always a doctor, of course, that you need.”
Horgan added that work is continuing on the city’s second hospital, to be located in Cloverdale.
“We’re going to continue of course with our plans to build a second hospital in Surrey, centred in Cloverdale, to put all the health care needs, acute care, urgent primary care, as well as expanding and developing culturally sensitive and appropriate care for seniors in that great community of Surrey,” Horgan said.
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