Parking lot where the Kamloops Cancer Care Centre is set to be built. (Credit: Abby Zieverink)
It appears plans for the Kamloops Cancer Care Centre are behind schedule.
Back in September, Health Minister Adrian Dix told Radio NL that the long-promised facility in Kamloops was on schedule, and that he would be coming to Kamloops in the fall to reveal the completed business case.
“It will be done in the fall. We are on schedule for that work,” Dix said at the time. “I look forward to seeing everyone in Kamloops in the Fall to discuss the business plan.”
However, Dix has not returned to Kamloops since that announcement.
Kamloops South Thompson MLA Todd Stone says he is on Minister Dix’s case every other week about the cancer care commitment.
“Another broken promise from Dix and the NDP,” Stone told Radio NL. “We were supposed to have a business plan, it was supposed to be rolled out in the fall and there is no business plan.”
“If you go up to the site, right by the hospital, it is a flat parking lot. There is nothing there. They have done announcements there but there is nothing happening and there is still no business plan,” said Stone.
Last May, Dix told reporters in Kamloops that the Cancer Care Centre would be welcoming its first patient by 2027.
Stone says if its not one failed promise its another when it comes to cancer treatment.
“Local cancer patients in Kamloops were told by Adrian Dix in his last visit that their travel costs – for having to go to Kelowna and back three or four times a week for radiation therapy – would be covered. He has announced it two or three times but there is no coverage.”
Radio NL has calls out to the Health Ministers office, requesting an update on the Kamloops Cancer Centre. Dix’s office has yet to respond with a date or time for an interview.
Meanwhile, the Thompson Regional Hospital District has also launched its $75,000 advocacy campaign to pressure the BC government to put shovels in the ground at the Kamloops Cancer Centre.
Dix told reporters in May that typical new cancer care centre projects cost between $200 million to $300 million, however the total cost for the Kamloops facility will be revealed in the business plan.
