Intensive Care

This past Monday I attended Nanaimo Regional General Hospital for a very special and long-awaited announcement. As Chair of the Nanaimo Regional Hospital District Board, I was on hand as B.C. Health Minister Dix announced that the new Intensive Care Unit at the hospital would be opening June 28. This will be a new 12-bed unit with state-of-the-art equipment which replaces the 50-year-old former ICU which was badly outdated and inadequate for the needs of our growing region. The cost of the new unit is $41.6 million, funded by the province through Island Health, the Nanaimo Regional Hospital District through a hospital tax levy, and by the Nanaimo Hospital Foundation through its fund-raising efforts. The announcement was great news, and was very gratefully received. It is another step in seeing the hospital improvements we desperately need, including cancer and cardiac care, long term care facilities, and above all a new patient tower at HRGH.