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I volunteer at Barrie’s Royal Victoria Regional Health Centre (RVH) three days a week, manning an information desk.
On June 13, I drove through three parking lots before finding a spot to leave my Mini. On June 14, I cruised two parking lots to find a space.
I have a parking pass. I’m not sure what visitors do when they cannot space. Can they just drive in and out of lots looking? I have had people complain they had trouble finding parking.
In November 2020, RVH opened a 70-bed “field hospital” in a tent outside the Simcoe Entrance to provide extra space during the COVID epidemic. This facility is insulated, heated and has all the usual services — water, electricity, sewage, vacuum, oxygen, etc. — of an RVH ward. Unfortunately, it also occupies most of one parking lot.
During the COVID epidemic, the reduced parking availability was no problem. RVH limited visitors until the epidemic subsided. Recently, parking has become scarce.
On the third floor of RVH, there is a vast open space. RVH has a small workshop there where equipment like wheelchairs and beds are repaired. All the services a hospital ward might need — electricity, water, sewage, vacuum, oxygen, etc. — are roughed in. To become a functioning ward, this area only walls to be erected and equipment installed.
Why was the COVID facility not put into this space? Had that happened, RVH would now have a ward with 25 patient rooms, each capable of holding two or four beds, a capacity similar to the tent facility.
Eventually, the tent must come down – it’s a tent and far less durable than concrete and glass.
It cannot have been cheaper to put up this “field hospital” with services plus heating and A/C systems than to have finished the third-floor space!
Peter Bursztyn
Barrie
