B.C. premier, health minister to make announcement about health care in Nanaimo
CTV
British Columbia Premier David Eby and Health Minister Adrian Dix will make an announcement about health care in Nanaimo on Friday.
British Columbia Premier David Eby and Health Minister Adrian Dix will make an announcement about health care in Nanaimo on Friday.
CTV News Vancouver Island will carry the news conference LIVE starting at 9:30 a.m.
The announcement, delivered at Vancouver Island University's health and science building, comes one day after the health minister visited Kamloops to announce the province would build a new cancer care centre in that city.
The new centre at the Royal Inland Hospital will include radiation therapy, meaning patients will no longer have to travel the roughly two-hour trip south to Kelowna for the treatment, Dix said.
"In order to build a robust public health-care system, we are addressing a lack of health-care investments in communities across the province and, in this case, the need to distribute cancer care around the province," he said.
The announcement came more than a week after Dix announced up to 50 B.C. cancer patients will be referred to two clinics in Washington state every week in an effort to reduce wait times for radiation therapy.
Dix told the news conference Thursday that a "concept plan" for the new Kamloops centre, which was promised as part of the 2020 election, has been approved and a business plan will be completed this calendar year.
