Aerial view of Vancouver General Hospital Campus

Neurocritical care services care for and treat patients in the intensive care unit (ICU) with severe traumatic brain injuries.

How to access

  • Contact us

    Contact us for more information on how to access our service.

Hours of operation

Currently open

We operate 24 hours a day, 7 days a week

Visiting hours may vary depending on the unit. Please call the Vancouver General Hospital switchboard at (604) 875-4111 to determine visiting times before your visit.

Parking and transportation

Pick-up and drop-off

Contact the service, program or department for pick-up and drop-off information.

Parking

Pay parking 
If you're driving to VGH, leave enough time to find parking before your appointment. Consider dropping off elderly family members before seeking parking. Parkades can be found at the intersection of 12th Avenue and Laurel Street and within the Gordon and Leslie Diamond Health Care Centre at the corner of 12th Avenue and Oak Street.

Additional parking options, including parkades, street meters, and lots, are available within two or three blocks of the hospital. Refer to the site map for the parking symbol and respective locations. Note that overnight parking is not permitted for trailers or mobile homes. One-week parking passes for the VGH West 12th Avenue Parkade (at Laurel Street) can be purchased from the pay stations located in the parkade.

Download parking rates for VCH facilities

Wheelchair accessible parking
In both VGH parkades, wheelchair-accessible spaces are located near the elevators on levels 1, 2, 3 and 4. Metered spaces are available at the street level of the Jim Pattison Pavilion (enter from 12th Avenue) and within the inner courtyard. Be sure to display your “Disabled” parking permit.

Parking meters on-site
Some metered spaces are available outside the main entrance of the Jim Pattison Pavilion for dropping off and picking up patients. Other evening and weekend meters are within the inner courtyard north of 12th Avenue, entrance off Heather Street.

Free parking
You may find two-hour free parking between Oak and Granville streets (southwest of the hospital) and between West 12th and West 20th Avenues. Read the signs before you park. Parking attendants survey the area regularly, and many blocks are designated for residents only. 

For more parking information, please call (604) 875-4832.

Electric vehicle charging

Designated electric vehicle charging stations are available for patients and visitors. Charging is available for up to 4 hours at Level 2 stations and up to 1 hour at Level 3 stations. Please review our electric vehicle charging station etiquette for more information.

Electric vehicle charging stations at VGH:

EV Charger Type Parking Stall Number
Level 2 Charger 1574-1576, 1569-1573
4 stalls by level 2 elevator, no stall number
Level 3 Charger 1577-1578

Public transportation

VGH is accessible by TransLink services from Vancouver International Airport, BC Ferry Terminals at Horseshoe Bay and Tsawwassen, Pacific Central Station (downtown Vancouver rail and bus station), and SkyTrain stations.

  • Nearby bus routes include 9, 15, 17, and 99 B Line on West Broadway.
  • Canada Line access from Broadway-City Hall station located at West Broadway and Cambie St. (~1km walk or use aforementioned bus routes).

Plan your trip on the TransLink website

Resources for patients and families

    • Anoxic brain injury and braindeath

      Anoxic brain injury and braindeath info for patients and families.

    • Traumatic brain injury

      Traumatic brain injury information for patients and families.

    • Status epilepticus information

      Status epilepticus information for patients and families.

    • Subarachnoid hemorrhage

      Subarachnoid hemorrhage information for patients and families.

    • Intracerebral hemorrhage information

      Intracerebral hemorrhage information for patients and families.

Meet the team

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Dr. Donald Griesdale - Intensive Care Physician and Associate Professor

Dr. Donald Griesdale is an intensive care physician and anesthesiologist at Vancouver General Hospital and Assistant Professor in the Department of Anesthesiology, Pharmacology & Therapeutics at the University of British Columbia. Following his clinical training, he completed his Masters of Public Health in Quantitative Methods from the Harvard School of Public Health. He is an Associate Scientist at the Centre for Clinical Epidemiologist and Evaluation with the Vancouver Coastal Health Research Institute. His clinical and academics areas of interest include patient safety in airway management and neurocritical care of patients with traumatic brain injury. He is currently funded by the VGH & UBC Hospital Foundation Best of Health Fund having been the recipient of the Vancouver Coastal Health Research Institute Clinician Scientist Award for 2014.

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Dr. Mypinder Sekhon - Intensive Care Physician and Clinical Assistant Professor

Dr. Mypinder Sekhon, MD, is an intensive care physician and neurointensivist in the intensive care unit at Vancouver General Hospital. He is currently a clinical instructor in the Division of Critical Care Medicine and Department of Medicine at the University of British Columbia. He completed his medical school training, internal medicine residency and critical care medicine subspecialty fellowship at the University of British Columbia prior to completing a neurocritical care fellowship at Addenbrooke's Hospital at the University of Cambridge, United Kingdom under the guidance of Professors David Menon and Arun Gupta. His clinical and research interests include multimodal neuromonitoring, cerebral autoregulation disturbance after brain injury and critical care management of severe traumatic brain injury patients.

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Dr. Danilo Cardim - PhD Postdoctoral Fellow in Neurocritical Care

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Denise Foster - Research Coordinator

Denise has been a Registered Nurse since 1984 and was a bedside nurse in the Intensive Care Unit at Vancouver General Hospital from 1988 to 2001. She has been an ICU Research Coordinator at VGH since 2001. She is a long standing member of the Canadian Critical Care Trials Group and was the Chair of the Canadian Critical Care Research Coordinators Group from 2009 to 2015. When not busy coordinating all aspects of critical care research, Denise enjoys travel and fine food… as evidenced by her glee in this photo taken in Italy.

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Nicholas Fergusson - Research Associate

Nicholas Fergusson is a University of British Columbia medical student and research associate with the Vancouver General Hospital Neurocritical Care Research Unit. He holds a Masters of Science in Epidemiology from the University of Ottawa. He has past experience working as a clinical research assistant at the Ottawa Hospital Research Institute. His research interests include clinical trial design, ethics, and statistical analysis. Currently, he is leading a research initiative to characterize how organizational factors and occupancy strain in the intensive care unit impact clinical outcomes in the critically ill.

Vancouver General Hospital (VGH)

Vancouver General Hospital (VGH) offers specialized health-care services to residents in Vancouver and across the province through regional programs. We provide a full range of basic and highly specialized emergency health-care and trauma services to British Columbia.

Neurocritical Care

Neurocritical care services care for and treat patients in the intensive care unit (ICU) with severe traumatic brain injuries.