File photo - Health Minister Adrian Dix.

Image Credit: SUBMITTED / Province of B.C.

Kamloops has been promised a new cancer care centre for years, with former Premier John Horgan pitching it to residents while on the 2020 campaign trail.

He said at the time the city would have the clinic before the next election.

The next BC election will happen on or before Oct. 19 this year and in 2023 Health Minister Adrian Dix committed to finalize a cancer centre plan before the new year but now the province won't say how far along plans for the new facility are.

"The easiest way to put it is we're not a priority," Thompson Regional Hospital District board chair Mike O'Reilly said.

Dix was in Kamloops in May. At that time he said a concept plan was finished and promised the finalized business plan before the end of the year.

iNFOnews.ca has not received a response from the Ministry of Health since asking for an update on the plan last week.

Dix and Premier David Eby held a press conference at BC Cancer's Vancouver research centre on Jan. 9. They did not address the promise for a Kamloops cancer centre.

The hospital district approved a $75,000 cancer clinic advocacy campaign late last year, contracting a lobbying and communications firm in November, as it presses the province for progress on the promise.

While patients can get some treatment in Kamloops, they have to go to Kelowna for radiation therapy.

Not only does that mean people are forced to make a routine trip to the Okanagan, but it also means two of five radiation treatment machines are full with patients who would otherwise be in Kamloops, O'Reilly said.

"What worries me the most is the people who say they're not going to get (cancer) treatment because it's too far to drive to Kelowna," he said.

The business plan for a Kamloops clinic is now underway, according to the BC Cancer website. It's one of three new cancer clinics planned for the province and part of the province's 10-year plan.

O'Reilly wants to ensure it remains at the top of the ministry's priority list.

"There was a significant uproar a few months ago when the province was paying for treatment in Bellingham," he said. "But it's further for people to travel from Kamloops to Kelowna."

Eby and Dix announced new at-home screening tests for cervical cancer during the Jan. 9 press conference.

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