Health officials in Kamloops and B.C. are confident that the Kamloops Cancer Care Centre will be adequately staffed when it opens its doors in four years.

Speaking on NL Mornings, BC Cancer Foundation President and CEO, Sarah Roth, said she is optimistic that the facility will be adequately staffed, as she believes it will help attract health care professionals to come and work in Kamloops.

“People want to work in an environment where they feel that they’ve got access to state of the art equipment and nice space, so this is going to be a beautiful space,” Roth said.

“People who go into the field of medicine, they are life-long learners. They are motivated to work in an environment where they feel that they can benefit from the latest research, be a part of it.”

Roth also said patients “like to go to cancer centres where they have access clinic trials and other ways to participate in research.

“That is what makes a healthcare system great, better, and sustainable, and at the BC Cancer Foundation, we support that,” she said.

Interior Health CEO Susan Brown also said last week that she believes the new facility will help attract people to come and work in Kamloops.

“And we can’t do that without offering beautiful space with state of the art equipment because these potential new learners have come from other jurisdictions where they’ve learned on that equipment and its critical that its here for them when they come,” Brown said.

Health officials – including Brown and Health Minster Adrian Dix – had a similar tone about staffing ahead of the opening of the Phil and Jennie Gaglardi Tower at RIH. While they expected it would attract a number of workers, staff had to be redeployed to cover shifts as there were a number of unfilled vacancies when it opened in July 2022.

According to Interior Health’s job portal, there are currently 263 vacant positions across Kamloops, 100 of which are full-time ongoing positions, though not all of the vacancies are based at the hospital.

There are 1,681 total vacancies across the health authority, with 331 of these being full-time ongoing positions.

Speaking in Kamloops last Thursday, Dix was asked if he had any concerns about staffing the new cancer care centre.

“That’s a critical part of it over the next number of years is not just building the building, and supporting the building, it’s ensuring that we have the staff to fill it,” Dix said. “I think people love this community and they’re going to want to come to this centre.”

“A hospital isn’t about buildings, its about the staff who help people in the community that supports it.”

At this time, it is not clear how many staff would be needed to operate the Kamloops Cancer Care Centre when it opens in 2028. It is one of four being built in B.C., with the others located in Nanaimo, Burnaby and Surrey.

“It’ll be the first new cancer centre in some time in B.C., and that is a pretty good recruitment thing to have, but its also making changes like the changes we’ve made in the pay scale for oncologists for example,” Dix said. “And for radiation therapy that made a big difference in our hiring in the last year.”

“At BC Cancer, we have a very significant health, human resources efforts. Since April 1 last year, we have added 80 new cancer doctors in B.C. to start to meet that capacity.”

Interior Health and BC Cancer have also officially begun the Request for Qualifications (RFQ) process to select the developer who will lead the design and construction for the $359-million project.

Radio NL has calls into Interior Health to see how many staff members would be required to ensure the Kamloops Cancer Care Centre operates as intended.