Image credit: Michael Reeve/CFJC Today

By Aaron Schulze/CFJC Today

Update

Construction of Kamloops cancer centre to begin in 2025

Feb 8, 2024 | 1:00 PM

The B.C. government is assuring Kamloops that construction on the approved Kamloops cancer care centre at Royal Inland Hospital (RIH) will begin in 2025.

Speaking in the city Thursday (Feb. 8), Health Minister Adrian Dix said the five-storey BC Cancer Centre will be built on the Westlands site on RIH’s campus. The $359-million project will be split between the province, Interior Health and the Thompson Regional Hospital District. It’s expected to be complete in 2028.

The province said the Kamloops cancer centre will feature:

• space for radiation treatment
• radiation-therapy planning
• a CT simulator, an outpatient ambulatory-care unit
• 10 exam rooms
• two consultation rooms for radiation-therapy services
• an additional MRI suite
• patient arrival and check-in areas
• a 470-stall parkade
• sacred space for patients, caregivers and staff, with features to support traditional Indigenous ceremonies

The province adds upgrades to RIH have also been approved, such as updating and expanding the pharmacy and relocating and expanding the Community Oncology Network clinic from the eighth floor to the main floor.

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Cancer care delivered through the clinic includes oral and intravenous cancer treatment, chemotherapy, immunotherapy, targeted therapy and hormonal therapy. The clinic also provides initial consultation and treatment planning with a medical oncologist, supportive care, follow-up care and patient education.

The cancer centre’s completion in 2028 is later than the goal of patients receiving treatment in 2027 as outlined by Dix in May 2023. The BC NDP government gave its first promise of the long-awaited Kamloops cancer centre when former premier John Horgan visited Thompson Rivers University ahead of the 2020 B.C. election.