Mission History
Mission Hospital's'gravest
crisis' occurred in 1954
By David Buss, Record Contributor
The Mission City Record
Thursday August 9, 2001
Trouble in the new health care system is
nothing new. One way or the other, money has almost always
been the fundamental issue, and invariably involves the
amount and distribution of funds from Victoria. That was
the case in 1954, when Mission Memorial Hospital experienced
what Catherine Marcellus, co-author of Mission's Living
Memorials, called its "gravest crisis".
The trouble began with the publication
of a government report recommending that the Mission Hospital
should not be enlarged or rebuilt. The report went on
to suggest that the new hospital should be built in Haney
and the Mission patients should be "redirected" to it.
Naturally, Mission taxpayers would be expected to help
foot the bill!
The Mission Board of Commissioners
was not slow to respond. The August 25, 1954 Fraser Valley
Record gave front-page coverage of their meeting, which
appears to have been an emotional one. After Chairman
Naranjan Grewall outlined the controversial details of
the report, Board members were quoted crying "crucifixion
of small hospitals," and "discrimination against Mission."
The government attack only culminated
a series of perceived slights. The Board mentioned that
the government had already snubbed Mission's "long overdue"
need for a bridge, and hadn't bothered to answer several
urgent requests for "a stop and go sign" at Main of Horne,
the widening of Harbour Street, and a seal-coat for Main
Street. Nor that the government allowed for an increase
in the size of the local RCMP detachment.
Government penny-pinching, it seems,
is nothing new.
Nor is the tendency for politicians
to rile editors. "They Take Our Hospital To Haney" cried
the September 1 editorial headline. The piece then described
the 300-page report as "one of those remarkable compilations
that bureaucrats delight in producing," which would "provide
politicians with headaches beyond anything yet experienced
and annoy no end of voters." When local
MLA, Lyle Wicks - a government minister and resident,
not coincidentally, of Haney - claimed recently that he
had received no complaints about the report, the editor
dryly concluded, "This should be remedied as soon as possible."
In the ensuing months, the Record kept
up the heat, running story after story about the overcrowding
of the Mission Hospital and the urgent need for its enlargement
or replacement. On September 8, Dr. W.G. McClure was quoted
as having seen a patient "spend the day on the ambulance
stretcher in the emergency room and die there after seven
hours."
In subsequent Records, the paper ran
photos of overcrowded wards: six beds are crammed into
a room designed for three, beds so cluttered around the
room as to block the fire exit. Still another photo shows
land behind the hospital on Fourth Street, and states
that "Considerable support has been forthcoming from citizens
of Mission," for the new and larger hospital there.
Two years later, the crisis was temporarily
resolved. Despite the collapse of the Mission Railway
Bridge in 1955, money was found to build an annex to the
hospital. It was not until 1965, however, that the doors
to Mission's present hospital were opened.
