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By Doug Collins

One Man's Opinion

COLLINS: Hospitals and schools have so much in common

Nov 19, 2023 | 6:00 AM

What do hospitals and schools have in common? They’re in very short supply, workers are rapidly burning out because there aren’t enough of them, the government tends to throw money at them with no real plan in place to fix them, and they are both critical to our future well-being.

And now you can add something else. They both use portables.

Portable classrooms are nothing new in schools. Several schools in our school district have been forced to use portables to accommodate increasing enrollment. In some albeit rare cases, the land occupied by the portables was greater than the land occupied by the school building.

But having to use portables in hospitals is not as common. Yet that’s what Surrey Memorial, one of the busiest hospitals in the province, has had to do. They’ve had to put portables in place to serve as waiting areas, especially for pediatric patients. Mount St. Joseph Hospital in Vancouver has built a temporary ER waiting area. Other hospitals may do the same.

The moves have largely to do with planning for the increasing number of respiratory patients that show up over the winter months, including COVID-19. Hospitals have little capacity for extra admissions, and the worry is that the use of these portables will become the normal rather than the exception. And I wonder about the safety concerns as well.

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I have been in many school portables, and I sure wouldn’t want to use them for medical purposes. They can be cold and damp in the winter, hard to keep clean, and generally a tough area to concentrate on learning. I would hope hospitals have access to a much higher quality facility, one which is much more welcoming than the school version.

I can’t imagine anything more foreboding than walking into a dark and gloomy place that gives the appearance of a place to which you are coming to die. I know that desperate times call for desperate measures, but an increasing number of portables is not a great answer. Kudos to health authorities for planning ahead to accommodate the certain increase in respiratory ailments over the winter. It’s unfortunate that this is the only option that seems to be available.

I’m Doug Collins and that’s One Man’s Opinion.

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Editor’s Note: This opinion piece reflects the views of its author, and does not necessarily represent the views of CFJC Today or Pattison Media.