Provincial ministers to visit Kamloops for cancer centre announcement on Thursday

Photo: Contributed

This sign and nopw empty parking lot mark the spot where a long-await cancer centre in Kamloops is set to rise. Provincial ministers will be in Kamloops Thursday to announce the start of construction.

Two provincial ministers will be in Kamloops on Thursday for an announcement about the pending $359-million cancer care centre at Royal Inland Hospital.

Bowinn Ma, minister of infrastructure, and Health Minister Josie Osborne will be at RIH for the 10 a.m. announcement. The pair will be joined by representatives from Interior Health, Tk’emlúps te Secwépemc and BC Cancer.

A ministry news release said the event will “celebrate construction beginning on the new BC Cancer centre in Kamloops.”

Osborne made a stop in North Kamloops on Monday to announce a program that sends mental health professionals and people with lived experience to help individuals in crisis.

While answering questions from reporters, Osborne hinted that a cancer centre announcement would be imminent.

“The procurement process is well underway,” Osborne said, when asked for an update on the project.

She said the province expects construction to start this year.

“Myself and Minister [Bowinn] Ma, the minister of infrastructure — who is actually the lead on this project — will have lots more to say soon.”

Kamloops residents in need of better access to treatments have heard promises of a local cancer centre for decades. The NDP government of the 1990s promised a centre that did not materialize and in 2020, then-Premier John Horgan who promised a cancer centre within his next four year mandate.

In 2023, former B.C. Health Minister Adrian Dix announced the provincial approval of a new cancer centre to be built on a site currently home to a gravel parking lot just west of Royal Inland Hospital.

Earlier this year, BC Cancer started the process of finding designers and builders for the proposed facility.

However, plans for the cancer centre have come under fire, with the City of Kamloops, Thompson Regional Hospital District and local MLAs petitioning for a redesign.

The Kamloops cancer centre is not designed to include a PET/CT scanner, although new facilities in Nanaimo, Burnaby and Surrey will be receiving this publicly-funded equipment.

This means regional cancer patients will still need to travel to Vancouver or Kelowna for PET/CT scans, though radiation treatments won’t require the trek.

Osborne said Monday it is not possible to accommodate a PET/CT scanner on the site chosen for the cancer centre.

“I know that that brings concern for people. I know that it means additional travel, having to go down to Kelowna. But I also know that having the radiation therapy here is the best first start possible, knowing that you can get that care closer to home,” Osborne said.