Manjit Gill’s family has relied on Langley Memorial Hospital for generations. The longtime Langley resident says the care they’ve received has been excellent, but she has also watched beds stay full and patients leave the community to get the treatment they need.

Now, the foundations behind Langley Memorial, Delta, and Peace Arch hospitals are raising concerns about the strain on the whole region. They’ve formed the South Fraser Healthcare Alliance to push the province for more healthcare investment, saying services in Langley, Delta, South Surrey, and White Rock haven’t kept up with population growth.

The alliance says Fraser Health receives about $2,621 per person each year, compared with $3,922 to $4,312 in other B.C. health authorities. It also says Fraser Health has the lowest hospital bed capacity per capita among the province’s health authorities, at 1.06 acute care beds per 1,000 residents, and that the average wait for a long-term care bed in Fraser Health is 402 days, compared with 290 days provincially.

The group is calling on the province to act in four areas: fairer funding for Fraser Health, more acute and long-term care beds, upgrades and expansion at the three community hospitals, and healthcare investment that keeps pace with housing mandates and population growth. For the hospitals, the alliance points to surgical and ambulatory care, diagnostic imaging, and critical and cardiac care. The alliance describes the three hospitals as an interconnected network and says strengthening each would help more patients get care closer to home while easing pressure on the broader regional system.

“We established this Alliance to speak with one voice and advocate for healthcare investment and regional needs,” said chair Peter Fassbender, a former B.C. MLA and three-term Langley mayor. Delta Hospital and Community Health Foundation board chair Rick Boates is vice chair, and the alliance also includes executive leaders from all three foundations.

Carrisa Basham, executive director of the Langley Community Health & Hospital Foundation, said regional investment needs to go hand in hand with modernizing and expanding the existing community hospitals. Stephanie Beck, CEO of the Peace Arch Hospital + Community Health Foundation, said that “as a group, our voices are stronger.”

For Tom McIntosh, a longtime South Surrey resident and temporary care patient at Peace Arch Hospital’s Weatherby Pavilion, the wait is personal. He is waiting for a long-term care space and doesn’t know when one will open up. “I’d like to feel like I have a home again,” he said.