The Globe and Mail reports in its Tuesday edition the total capital cost for a new
mental-health facility at Vancouver
General Hospital is now fully
funded. The Globe's Andrea Woo writes Bell Canada announced Monday
it is donating the final
$1-million to the $82-million
Joseph and Rosalie Segal Family
Centre, named after the philanthropic
couple that earlier
donated $12-million toward its
construction. The province contributed
$57-million.
The eight-storey facility, slated
to open in 2017, will not offer
any new provincial beds,
because the 100 beds will be
transferred from the existing 70-year-old facility and elsewhere
within VGH. However, the private
patient rooms, each with
their own bathrooms, will be a
marked improvement from the
existing facility, which has four
people to a room, with one
shared bathroom on each floor. At VGH and St. Paul's Hospital,
emergency room visits for
mental health and substance
misuse have increased by 55 per
cent in the past five years,
reaching 15,450 in 2014. Vancouver
Mayor Gregor Robertson and
Police Chief Jim Chu have
labelled the situation a "crisis,"
pleading for more assistance
from the provincial government.
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