New urgent and primary care centre opens at Richmond Superstore

Richmond City Centre UPCC is located at the Superstore retail complex at 110-4671 No. 3 Road, Richmond. (Google Maps)

The provincial government has opened a permanent urgent and primary care centre (UPCC) in a strategic location in Richmond’s downtown.

A 7,500 sq ft space at 110-4671 No. 3 Road, previously used as an office space for Manulife Financial, has been retrofitted into the Richmond City Centre UPCC. Over $5 million was spent on renovations and equipping the space.

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The facility will be operational 365 days a week starting on April 25, 2022, replacing a temporary location in the city centre that opened last year.

The new location is immediately adjacent to Superstore, and effectively provides the UPCC’s patients with very convenient access to the supermarket’s pharmacy. It is also centrally located, within walking distance of SkyTrain stations and major bus routes, and contains ample vehicle parking as it is part of the Superstore retail complex.

“Vancouver Coastal Health is pleased to enhance access to care for more people in the community of Richmond,” said Vivian Eliopoulos, president and CEO of Vancouver Coastal Health Authority (VCH).

“The new Richmond City Centre Urgent and Primary Care Centre allows us to provide urgent health-care services as well as primary care to seniors and clients with medically complex, mental-health and social-work needs. Residents can expect expanded health-care services with extended hours when we open the permanent UPCC.”

Grand opening ceremony of Richmond City Centre UPCC on April 20, 2022. (Government of BC)

This is a full service facility with on-site and outpatient access to X-ray services. Its staff will work permanently at the location — a make up of about 33 full-time equivalent healthcare workers, including family physicians, nurse practitioners, registered nurses, and a social worker.

UPCC facilities across BC, a relatively new model of healthcare facility, are intended to close the gap in residents lacking a family doctor, and reduce the volume of visits at hospital emergency rooms for non-life threatening ailments and injuries — people who need to see a health-care provider within 12 to 24 hours for conditions such as sprains, cuts, high fevers, and minor infections.

As a case in point, about 33% of visits to Richmond Hospital’s emergency department in the last fiscal year were deemed to be relatively low acuity, and many of these visits could have been handled in an UPCC.

The UPCC location will be open daily, including all holidays, with operating hours of 8 am to 10 pm on weekdays and Saturdays, and 9 am to 5 pm on Sundays.

In Fall 2022, the facility’s services will be further expanded to include social work, dieticians, mental-health supports, and medical diagnostics. The offered services are designed for the Richmond population’s most prevalent chronic conditions, including hypertension, diabetes, osteoporosis, asthma, and ischemic heart disease.

Late last month, VCH also opened Vancouver Southeast UPCC at 5880 Victoria Drive, serving Vancouver’s Victoria-Fraserview neighbourhood.

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