Island Health is doing all it can to ensure that the new Cowichan District Hospital will have enough medical staff to operate efficiently and at capacity when the facility opens in 2027, according Westley Davidson.
Davidson, the chief project officer at the site of the new approximately $1.5 billion hospital on Bell McKinnon Road, provided an update on the project to the directors of the Cowichan Valley Regional District at a meeting on Nov. 27.
Ian Morrison, director for Cowichan Lake South/Skutz Falls, said it’s expected that between 200 and 300 more medical professionals will be required to staff the new hospital. He asked Davidson what is being done to ensure the new CDH will have the staff it needs when it opens.
Davidson said Island Health does have a human-resources strategy to fill the facility’s staffing needs, but it’s a difficult task.
“Until someone invents a 3D printer that can print nurses and physicians, we’re stuck with what we have, so we have to entice high-school graduates to enter into an education that’s medically focused, and Island Health has also supported more seats for nurses, including additional nursing seats for Cowichan,” Davidson said.
“As well, we’ve been working with the faculty of medicine at the University of B.C. There’s a large resident program there which is working with local family physicians to support additional physicians and doctors (at the new CDH), but it’s a challenge, not just in Cowichan, but everywhere."
Davidson that with the new St. Paul’s Hospital in Vancouver, as well as the new Royal Columbian Hospital in New Westminster, soon to be open as well as the new CDH, there is lots of competition for medical professionals in B.C. at this time. But he said he has faith in the new hospital’s operational readiness team to fill the staffing requirements.
“They’ve been working for the past three or four months to develop what the staffing models look like, and I’ve been working with our human-resources team to try and build the capacity we need as well,” he said.
Davidson also pointed out that there are a number of medical professionals who live in the Cowichan Valley that currently travel to Nanaimo or south of the Malahat for work who may decide to seek employment in the new state-of-the-art CDH when it opens.
