B.C. Hospital Turns Tim Horton’s Into Temporary ER

New Westminster’s Royal Columbian Hospital briefly used its cafeteria Monday to handle an overflow of patients from its emergency room.

Would you like an IV with your Timbits? Doctors at the hospital said they found a perfectly reasonable solution to overcrowding, but critics say the bigger issue is a lack of health facilities in the rapidly growing New Westminster area of B.C. Patients had been on beds beneath the waiting room’s TV, but doctors said this afforded them no privacy and left medical staff no room to administer medications. The cafeteria adjacent to the ER had just closed, and so staff decided to move several patients’ beds into the coffee shop after cleaning it and erecting privacy screens. NDP health critic Sue Hammell said the overcrowding is linked to health care cuts made by the B.C. Liberal government in 2001.