New Surrey urgent care centre to open in October

Premier John HorgansaidSurrey, which is the fastest growing city in B.C., will be the first location for an urgent primary-care centre to ease the pressure on walk-in clinics and emergency rooms.

He said it will launchin October.

"By opening urgent primary-care centres in all of the health regions, we are delivering on our promise to improve quality of care, and provide more care to more people", said Horgan.

Horgan and B.C. Health Minister, Adrian Dix, made the announcement Thursday in Surrey, after making a promise to open the centres to improve health care during the New Democrats 2017 election campaign.

Centreto relieve emergency room backlog

The facility is expected to provide more timely medical treatment for people who seek help for non-emergency conditions such ascuts, earaches, back painand sore throats.

Dix said, "In many respects ... Surrey is a focus, it's ground zero for how we're going to transform public health care."

There has been increasing pressure on emergency room servicesand patient backups at Surrey Memorial HospitalwhichFraser Health estimates sees 300 to 400 patients a day.

The new care centre will be located at 9636 137ASt.and will operatefrom 10 a.m. to 10 p.m, sevendays a week.

More locations are expected to be announced soon.

The B.C. government has saidthat all 10 urgent primary-care centres will be openwithin the next 12 months.