Construction will begin next year on a long-promised cancer care centre in Kamloops, according to B.C. Health Minister Adrian Dix.
The five-storey building and associated enhancements to Royal Inland Hospital is expected to come with a total price tag of $359 million.
Dix made the announcement Thursday to a crowd gathered in the hospital’s atrium. He said the facility's business plan had been approved in less than a year — a process that typically takes 18 months.
“This is big news for people in the Kamloops region,” he said.
“I hope this will become part of the fabric of life in Kamloops."
Procurement starts next week
Dix said the province will now move to the contract procurement phase starting next week, seeking contractors for the facility’s design and construction.
Dix said the building’s lower floors will house three radiation treatment linear accelerators, radiation therapy planning, an MRI scanner and an outpatient care unit. It will also contain a CT simulator, which pinpoints the exact location and shape of a tumour, helping radiation oncologists determine the most effective radiation treatment plan.
There will be 10 exam rooms, two consultation rooms and offices and workstations.
Dix said the top levels of the building will contain the promised 470-stall parkade.
The facility, however, will not have a positron emission tomography scanner, which was previously promised. The centre was also previously said to open a year earlier by in 2027.
RIH upgrades also move ahead
“In addition upgrades to the hospital have also been approved,” Dix said.
Those include updating and expanding the hospital’s pharmacy, new workstation stations, offices and improvements to storage areas. Meanwhile the oncology clinic will also be relocated from the south tower to be next door to the pharmacy.
He said the relocated clinic will have upgraded rooms, equipment and medical daycare treatment spaces.
Dix said having the clinic closer to the pharmacy will ensure shorter delivery time for medications and closer access to consultation spaces for pharmacy staff.
Dix said the number of incidents of cancer is expected to grow in the Kamloops area by 33 per cent by 2041 and, across B.C., diagnoses of cancer in are expected to rise from 30,000 to 44,000 in just over two years.
“We need to dramatically expand our capacity to support people living with cancer,” he said.
B.C. currently has six cancer centres and Kamloops is one of four new facilities being built under the province’s 10-year cancer plan. The other centres are being built in Nanaimo, Burnaby and Surrey.
