Lions Gate Hospital launches campaign for emergency mental health unit

A new emergency mental health unit will be built into Lions Gate Hospital’s existing emergency department under a $5-million plan announced Tuesday by the hospital foundation.

Work is expected to start later this year on an eight-bed specialized emergency psychiatric assessment unit designed to triage patients dealing with mental health or substance use emergencies.

Another part of the plan involves reconfiguring the emergency department to improve sight lines from the nursing station to patient waiting areas in an effort to improve safety.

While the hospital’s new emergency department was state of the art when it was opened 12 years ago, there have been substantial changes since then, according to the Lions Gate Hospital Foundation.

The number of patients going through the emergency department is up 40 per cent since 2009 – from 40,000 patients annually to 65,000.

Of those, about 3,500 need emergency care for a mental health or substance use issue, compared to 1,800 dealing with similar issues in 2009. About 17 per cent of those patients are under 19, according to the foundation.

Dr. Allan Burgmann, medical director of acute psychiatric services at Lions Gate Hospital, said in the foundation’s campaign launch – held over Zoom Tuesday morning – that improvements are long overdue.

“We’re the only hospital in the region that doesn’t have a psychiatric assessment unit,” said Burgmann.

Psychiatric patients who show up to emergency are often in crises, “they are acutely psychotic or acutely suicidal,” said Burgmann, adding it’s not safe for those patients to wait in the general emergency area.

Connected to that is a plan to install a permanent physical barrier at the triage desk and to change the layout of the emergency department to make it easier for nurses to keep an eye on what’s happening in the waiting area.

“It really is a safety issue for patients and staff,” said David Damian, a registered nurse who works in the ER.

Violent incidents in the emergency department have doubled in the past five years, according to information provided by the foundation.

Improvements to the emergency department are expected to cost $5 million. Of that, Vancouver Coastal Health is expected to contribute $1.5 million and the Lions Gate Hospital Foundation will raise an additional $4 million.

Edith Chan, chair of the campaign to raise that money, said on the Zoom announcement that the foundation has already managed to raise about half of that from large donors.

Construction should be complete by 2022.