| Abbotsford Regional Hospital and Cancer Centre | |
| Org/Group: | ARHCC Inc. |
| Map Type: | Canada British Columbia |
| Map Size: | 225 |
| Location: | Abbotsford |
| Region: | Fraser Valley |
| State: | British Columbia |
| Country: | CA |
| Coordinates: | 49.0383°N -122.3155°W |
| Address: | 32900 Marshall Road, Abbotsford, B.C. V2S 0C2 |
| Healthcare: | Medicare |
| Funding: | Government |
| Type: | Regional hospital |
| Emergency: | II |
| Network: | Hospital: Fraser Health Cancer Centre: BC Cancer Agency |
| Beds: | 300 |
| Founded: | Aug 24, 2008 |
Abbotsford Regional Hospital and Cancer Centre (ARHCC) is a 300-bed Canadian health care facility in the City of Abbotsford, British Columbia that houses the acute care Abbotsford Regional Hospital (ARH) operated by Fraser Health and the regional cancer facility (Abbotsford Centre) operated by the BC Cancer Agency.
ARHCC opened in 2008 as:
It is also the city's largest worksite in terms of number of employees.
The facility offers both inpatient and outpatient services to residents of Abbotsford and regional services to other communities in the eastern Fraser Valley (Mission, Chilliwack, Hope, etc.)
Fraser Health's Abbotsford Regional Hospital provides community hospital services to Abbotsford residents and regional services to about 330,000 residents of the eastern Fraser Valley.[5] These services include:
The cancer centre portion of the building is independently operated by the BC Cancer Agency as the Abbotsford Centre, the fifth regional centre in the province, which was created to reduce waits and travel for residents of the eastern Fraser Valley who otherwise would have to travel to centres in Surrey or Vancouver for treatment.
The Abbotsford Centre offers a full range of cancer control services, including:
The current hospital has had two forerunners, with the first being opened on 18 April 1922. This hospital, called the 'Cottage' Hospital opened with a mere 14 beds. Eventually, as Abbotsford and its environs began to grow, a new hospital was needed, and so the Abbotsford-Matsqui-Sumas Hospital opened on 28 February 1953.[8] Despite renovations and upgrades, advocacy for the creation of the now current hospital began two decades prior to its 2008 opening.
The current ARHCC was a state-of-the-art replacement for the obsolete MSA (Matsqui-Sumas-Abbotsford) General Hospital which was built in 1953 and was criticized as undersized by the time of its last major renovation in 1980.[9] The community served by MSA grew substantially in recent decades and the three districts amalgamated to form the City of Abbotsford after a plebiscite in 1995.[10]
By the turn of the century, replacement of MSA Hospital was a political issue for the growing Fraser Valley community. After Gordon Campbell was elected as Premier of British Columbia in 2001, his local cabinet ministers Michael de Jong, John van Dongen and Mission MLA Randy Hawes advocated for construction of a new, larger hospital and addition of a regional cancer centre using a public-private partnership (P3) model.
Design, construction and facility maintenance services are provided by private partner Access Health Abbotsford, a consortium of companies including Sodexo, under a 30-year contract. The design reduced energy costs and environmental features that earned the hospital designation as Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) Gold by the Canada Green Building Council.[11] ARHCC was the first P3 infrastructure project for the province's newly created agency Partnerships BC. As a new model for BC public infrastructure, the P3 approach attracted criticism from groups such as Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives. In the end, ARHCC was built on time and on budget ($355 million for construction and equipment) and the Auditor General of British Columbia assured the P3 approach would benefit government by $39 million over 30 years.[12]
Fraser Valley taxpayers contributed $71.3 million to construction and equipment costs through the Fraser Valley Regional Hospital District.
MSA Hospital was closed and inpatients transported to ARHCC on opening day, August 24, 2008. At 60,000 square metres, the 300-bed ARHCC is almost three times the physical size of the 188-bed MSA facility.
The opening ceremony occurred in September 2008. Dignitaries included Premier of British Columbia Gordon Campbell, Health Minister George Abbott and Abbotsford Mayor George Ferguson.
Patient volumes increased after opening in part due to residents of nearby communities checking out the modern facility and continued population growth in the region. At times, hospital congestion result in complaints about patients being cared for in stretchers in hallways.[13] [14] [15] Property adjacent to ARHCC was used by non-profit societies to build three facilities titled the Dave Lede Campus of Care:[16]