The Fair Care Alliance are campaigning for a better distribution of healthcare resources for residents north of the Malahat. (Fair Care Alliance)

By NanaimoNewsNOW Staff

healthcare challenges

‘We have this one opportunity:’ rally scheduled to boost support for central Island healthcare

Sep 8, 2024 | 10:08 AM

NANAIMO — With a provincial election looming, a local group is trying to send a loud message to whoever forms government next month: more healthcare resources are needed north of the Malahat.

The Fair Care Alliance is a group of central and north Island-based medical, business, Indigenous and government leaders calling for better access to healthcare for the roughly 460,000 people living on central and northern Vancouver Island.

Alliance chair Donna Hais said those living outside the Victoria area are substantially limited in their access to healthcare, in particular specialist appointments in a central location like Nanaimo Regional General Hospital.

“We have more people, we have older people which means they have more acute care and we don’t have access to the standard of care in Canada when it comes to cardiac, which would be a cath lab. The cath lab is one very specific infrastructure project that Fair Care Alliance is fighting for.”

The group is planning a public rally at the Beban Park Social Centre on Thursday, Sept. 12 beginning at 5:30.

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Hais said the goal is to bring more voices to the chorus and demand better healthcare representation.

Over recent years, areas north of the Malahat have received about one-fifth of healthcare funding spent on Vancouver Island, according to Hais.

“The conversation about fair and equitable healthcare belongs to the community and we need everyone to join our voices at Fair Care to let the provincial government know that they need to spend money on healthcare infrastructure on central Vancouver Island.”

Hais aside from a lack of a cath lab at Nanaimo Regional General Hospital, just two cardiologists work on site and provide care.

By comparison, she said Victoria has two cath labs and 22 cardiologists.

“We’re the tertiary centre for central and north Island and we have this one opportunity with this provincial election happening to really gain the attention of the provincial government so they direct the funding that’s so needed.”

The Alliance is also pushing for upgrades, or outright replacement, to the main patient tower at NRGH, which was built in 1962.

Recent upgrades at the hospital, funded by the provincial government, have included a new 12-bed intensive care unit which opened in June 2023, along with an under-construction high acuity unit poised to be operational shortly.

The province has also committed to a new $289 million Nanaimo Cancer Centre, slated to start construction in 2025 and welcome patients in 2028.

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