The NDP has made a significant election campaign promise to mid-Island voters, committing to a new patient tower at Nanaimo Regional General Hospital.
B.C. NDP leader David Eby made the announcement at the start of a town hall Thursday, Sept. 26, at the Beban Park Social Centre.
"And we're going to make sure that we're building the housing and we're training the health-care workers so that that facility is going to have the staff that it needs to deliver for people," he said. "On the physical facility side, we're building up Nanaimo. We've got the cancer centre, we've got the ICU, we've got the patient tower, we're going to have the surgical rooms, all of that work to make sure that the space is there so that the people in Nanaimo get the care that they need."
He acknowledged that there's additional work to do on improving health care in Nanaimo, mentioning the need for a cardiac catheterization lab, and said his party intends to keep working toward improvements.
Eby didn't announce an expected cost of a patient tower, but Nanaimo's Fair Care Alliance advocacy group has estimated the price tag at $1.7 billion. Generally, provincial governments direct 60 per cent of funding for capital projects for health-care facilities and hospital districts raise the other 40 per cent through tax requisition.
"It really matters to have a local community that is prioritizing this project and stepping up to partner with us on it and it's definitely a factor in making these decisions," Eby said.
He said if the B.C. NDP is re-elected, the party will begin on a business plan for the patient tower "right away" and engage hospital staff, including doctors and nurses, in the design process.
Nanaimo-Lantzville NDP candidate George Anderson, who hosted the town hall, said the funding of a new intensive-care unit, urgent and primary care investments and now the patient tower show that "this government is focused on taking action for people and this is another action."
Eby campaigned in Ladysmith earlier in the day Thursday, Sept. 27, and was in the Comox Valley on Friday, Sept. 28.
