Many long-time Tri-Cities residents and an increasing number of newcomers are voicing a shared, growing anxiety: our region’s health-care system is not keeping pace with its rapidly expanding population. The concern is no longer abstract. It is visible in social-media discussions, heard repeatedly during public input at Port Moody council meetings, and felt acutely by families who struggle to access timely care.
The sentiment is becoming widespread enough that some residents now believe the provincial government’s plans for further population growth in the Tri-Cities should be paused until meaningful investment is made in core health-care infrastructure. In a region adding thousands of new residents every year, the absence of a long-term plan is increasingly untenable.
History offers a clear lesson.
The story of Eagle Ridge Hospital is a reminder that when communities speak with conviction, governments are compelled to act.
In the late 1970s and early 1980s, the Tri-Cities were transforming. Young families were settling in new neighbourhoods, and what had been a quiet waterfront community was evolving into a vibrant suburban region. Residents understood that growth without adequate health care was a recipe for crisis. Their advocacy led to the formation of the Eagle Ridge Hospital Foundation in 1982, and just two years later—when Port Moody’s population hovered around 15,000—the hospital opened on city-donated land.
For more than 40 years, Eagle Ridge Hospital has served as the region’s medical anchor. It has cared for our children, supported our seniors, handled emergencies, and offered comfort in moments of fear and uncertainty. It has been, in every sense, a stabilizing institution.
But pressure has been building for well over a decade. By the mid-2010s, an emergency department designed for 20,000 annual visits was seeing more than twice that volume. Hallways became overflow areas, wait times stretched, and frontline teams worked under relentless strain, often without the space or resources required to meet demand safely.
In 2017, the provincial government announced the first meaningful expansion of the emergency department since the hospital opened in 1984. The redevelopment doubled the number of treatment spaces, from 19 to 39, and added trauma bays, isolation rooms, and decontamination facilities. It was a welcome improvement, but even with a modernized footprint, the hospital continues to grapple with the systemic challenges now familiar across Canada: staffing shortages, rising patient complexity, and the pressures of a region whose population has outpaced infrastructure.
Today, Eagle Ridge Hospital remains the only hospital serving the Tri-Cities for nearly 290,000 residents, plus many from surrounding communities. The Urgent Care Clinic opened in 2022. While helpful, it is widely viewed as a band-aid measure rather than a substantive expansion of care.
These issues are not the result of a single government or a single decade. They reflect long-standing failures in provincial planning, execution, and accountability across parties. Health care cannot be expanded retroactively; planning must anticipate growth, not chase it.
That is why the provincial government must be pressed to order an independent, region-wide review of health-care management in the Fraser Health Authority, and commit the financial resources required to restore balance to this critical system.
More than 40 years ago, our community organized and demanded the hospital it knew it needed. We face a similar moment today. The Tri-Cities are growing, but our health-care capacity is not. Once again, residents must stand together and insist that the province match growth with responsibility, and ensure our region receives the level of care its people deserve.
Jeff McLellan is a long-time resident of Port Moody.
I would like you to know, I’m a longer time resident of Port Moody, been here before any hospital. We were told in the beginning the hospital could and would expand as needed, it was built to expand… now it’s just falling down and nobody cares.
Security issues at Eagle Ridge, what has been done about that? Understaffed hospital wards, our medical professionals are being physically abused and attacked, what is being done about that? When hospital staff at ALL levels speak out about their safety, patient safety, overcrowding, burnout, understaffing and anything else that affects their ability to help and treat patients, cause that’s what their trained to do, they are hauled out on the carpet by a management team that has a business degree and has probably never treated a patient in their life but are deemed qualified to run a hospital. Politicians do nothing and those Politicians who can do something, do even less ( Health Minister )… I agree with all comments but like he will be ignored by all levels of Government, so will I. The sooner this goes away the better as far as our Politicians are concerned.
Signed another, “long time resident of Port Moody”.
This is what you get when you vote the NDP in for 8 years.
I implore those that want change faster to donate to your local hospital Foundation. It allows greater flexibility in where the funds go, creating meaningful change in your local hospitals.
Get involved as well – reach out and see what they need. Community action drives change and the Foundations are a great place to start.
I do not believe it is a ndp problem only. It seems to be a problem long before they were democratically elected. Simple to blame them I understand but the problem is much bigger.
Instead of blaming without proof do something about it
Anyone can complain,blame, it is much harder to fix. Any suggestion how we can fix it would be appreciated. Thanks for allowing me to comment.