Petition for Change in Surrey

Dear Premier John Horgan, Minister Adrian Dix and Dr. Bonnie Henry, 

I am an Emergency Medicine Physician working and living in Surrey. In my role as a resident and physician, I’m pleading with the Provincial government to:

IMMEDIATELY implement the proven strategies of rapid sweeping community wide vaccinations in Surrey for everyone 18 and older.

Young people are not only getting infected and transmitting the virus but they are also dying from it. I cannot put into words how difficult it is to put a young — otherwise healthy — person on a ventilator, struggling to breathe because they are infected by COVID. Then to pick up the phone, call their spouse only to hear their kids coughing in the background.

Now that vaccine supplies are readily available, we need to make vaccinations available for all immediately. The call to action is now — if you answer it, I am convinced this will be a life-saving strategy.

We are seeing a rising number of COVID cases in a much younger population — and Surrey continues to be the hardest hit city in the province. The current measures are not working for our city.

We are seeing an increase in the number of critically ill COVID patients in a much younger population than earlier in the pandemic. Likely due to the appropriate vaccination of the elderly. Province-wide, people under 40 make up more than 50% of total cases. Surrey has so many young people that the average age of the entire population is 39 with a median age of 38.7. This reveals the disproportionate impact being shouldered by residents of Surrey. 

We need to change the way we are approaching the vaccination process in Surrey. We need to make it specific to our unique population.

Although registration is a great way to organize supply and staff, “register and wait” presents an unnecessary delay to getting vaccines into our people. If we decentralize the administration of vaccines and come up with creative solutions by engaging community organizations, private businesses and residents, we can radically increase the speed of vaccination.

We only have two tools: public health measures and vaccinations. Current public health measures have not resulted in the same decline in case numbers and hospitalization in Surrey as they have in most other jurisdictions in the province.

Surrey is also a dense community with households made up of multi-generational families. The risk of transmission is understandably higher. Surrey is unique in its make up and for that reason we need to implement a unique, community-appropriate method to save lives.

Please answer this call — many in my profession, organizations and residents of Surrey are ready to help. We can do this together, if you’ll move with us to make it happen.

IMMEDIATELY implement rapid sweeping community vaccinations for everyone 18 and over.

Dr. Randeep S. Gill

Dr. James Handel

Dr. Sukh Dhiman

Dr. Bill West

Dr. David Chong

Dr. Kaleena Patel

Dr. Alan Kuan 

Dr. Robby Birdi

Dr. Jonathan Golden

Dr. Rob Cheyne

Dr. Bjorn Vegsund

Dr. Jasper Ghuman

Dr. Simon Jones

Dr. Matias Berg

Dr. Brian Baker 

Dr. Al Tober

Dr. Anthony Bryson

Dr. Jonathan Mills 

Dr. Steve Blyth 

Dr. Damon Tedford 

Dr Brett Elsdon

Dr. David King