Red Cedar
More apocalypse, less angst
East Van’s secret hospital
This is where I was yesterday. Minor medical test only, really nothing to worry about…. But I’m flagging it with this photo as an excuse to let you East Vansters know about Mount St. Joseph Hospital which is probably Vancouver’s best kept secret.
At Kingsway and Prince Ed (two blocks off Main at 14th), this is East Van’s only hospital and if you have to go somewhere for testing, day surgery or an emergency room, I would highly recommend this over VGH or St Paul’s both of which are frenetic day and night. I first became acquainted with St. Joseph’s when I took Brian in for cataract surgery last year – and so requested that my test be scheduled here when it came up with my Doctor. So much more relaxed than having to work one’s way through the maze of a giant hospital! Plus the staff here seem less stressed, and I have only had professional and courteous experiences the three times I have been (twice for B., once for me).
Super easy to get to, any bus up Kingsway or Main will drop you right there. And best of all? It’s in the hood which means closer than anywhere else for urgent medical care. I’ve noticed that most people have never heard of this hospital – as I hadn’t before B. had his surgeries scheduled there which is why I’m passing this on as good-to-know-info.
It *is* a Catholic hospital, which I recognize some people don’t use as a matter of principle on the whole question of abortion access (but so is St. Paul’s and they do some of the most progressive HIV research in North America) – but Vancouver has a clinic system for abortion and contraception so it would be rare to go to a hospital for these things anyway.
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Red Cedar 
PROPS to this hospital! It is where I go whenever I am injured (between the hours of 6AM and 8PM, their emergency room “hours” – love it). I’ve fallen off my bike and been mangled, twice, and consequently am just in NO MOOD to endure the waiting game fuckery of VGH or St. Paul’s (God bless ’em). Mount St. J’s is in an innocuous yet easily-accessible spot and the staff is friendly – or at least not totally misanthropic yet, like so many (busier? More overworked?) medical staff. I agree, it is a great East Van ‘secret.’