The City of Duncan wants to see the existing Cowichan District Hospital on Gibbins Road maintained as a mental health or rehabilitation facility following the opening of the new CDH, scheduled for 2027.
City council unanimously decided at its meeting on Jan. 27 that the municipality will submit that resolution at the next AGM of the Association of Vancouver Island and Coastal Communities, which will be held in Nanaimo in April.
Coun. Tom Duncan, who made the motion that the resolution be submitted, said he doesn’t want to see the aging CDH, which opened in 1967, torn down when hospital operations switch to the new approximately $1.5-billion facility on Bell McKinnon Road when it opens.
“That hospital would cost a lot of money just to tear down because of the asbestos issues there, so I think we’d be better off to invest some money into the old building so we can have a mental health and/or a rehab facility there,” he said.
Coun. Garry Bruce agreed that the old hospital should be used as a mental health or rehabilitation facility, but asked staff if they see any trouble with the city submitting a motion on a property that is in the jurisdiction of the Municipality of North Cowichan.
Duncan’s director of corporate services Paige MacWilliam said that in the past, the city has written to the Health Ministry regarding its interest in the disposition process for the hospital site, and the ministry replied that when the government undertakes a consultation process prior to the disposition of the old hospital, the city would be informed.
“We also have proposed for the next joint meeting [of North Cowichan and Duncan councils] the topic of considering sites for highly secured facilities, and I know that’s one of the sites that has been bandied about as an option, so we can certainly prepare a resolution and if there is support at the AVICC meeting, then of course it would be up to the other members of that group,” MacWilliam said.
“You do typically want to choose topics that you might end up needing to advocate for for quite some time that has a direct impact on your constituents and hasn’t been previously addressed by resolutions in the past.”
Duncan said he anticipates that the new hospital probably won’t be open for another two or three years, so he thinks now is the time to start lobbying for the old hospital to be continued to be used as a medical facility.
Westley Davidson, chief project officer for the construction of the new CDH, said in December that there are no plans at this time for the future of the old CDH.
However, he said he’s taking the lead in Island Health’s efforts to eventually decide the future of the old CDH because there’s so much community interest in it, but nothing has been discussed at Island Health, from the CEO on down, on determining what will happen with the old hospital because Island Health is too concentrated on the new CDH at this time.
“There is so much energy and effort that is going on here that we don’t have time to take our eyes off the ball and look at the existing hospital,” Davidson said. “But we plan to have some community consultations on this issue in the not-too-distant future."
Community activist Peter Rusland began a petition in the summer of 2023, which has garnered almost 5,000 signatures so far, in an effort to convince Island Health and senior and local levels of government to keep the old CDH in public hands when the new hospital opens so it can continue to be used for medical purposes.
Many of the people who have signed the petition to date have indicated they would like to see the old CDH repurposed for public, medically related uses, including long-term care, cancer treatment and Alzheimer care, and some are suggesting it could be used for detox beds and/or keeping the current ER open as a walk-in clinic.
For more information on the petition, contact Rusland at peterrusland@shaw.ca.
