The Fair Care Alliance says it has asked the federal government for a share of $5 billion in hospital infrastructure funding.
Fair Care Alliance chairperson Donna Hais said to upgrade and provide appropriate levels of health care north of the Malahat would require a substantial investment of $2 billion, and that is why the group travelled to Ottawa to seek urgent funding.
“We went to Ottawa to ask for our fair share of the hospital infrastructure funding, and with our project costing $2.4 billion, we were there to talk about putting some funding into Nanaimo,” she said.
The Fair Care Alliance has been calling for provincial support to bring tertiary services north of the Malahat, and Hais said provincial funding is insufficient and that leveraging the hospital infrastructure fund could speed up the process.
“We realize there’s a lot of people with a lot of need asking our province for money,” she said. “We also know through this hospital infrastructure fund that there’s a unique opportunity for us to help pay the province portion, so the strain isn’t so great.”
So far, the alliance has met with the deputy minister of infrastructure, the Ministry of Health, and the Privy Council Office. Hais said early discussions show promise, and the group hopes to make further progress when it returns to Ottawa.
“We’re hoping to go back when the House of Commons is sitting and catch the ears of some of the various ministers we need to talk to about what distribution of funding looks like,” she said. “This is why we need to keep the pressure on; you can’t go there once and be done; we need to keep going and meet more people. We’re hoping when they [federal government] talk about hospital infrastructure spending that the first words out of their lips are the case in Nanaimo.”
Decisions on funding are expected by the end of March and into April, with specific criteria and timelines for each portion of the project. Hais said she is confident the proposal meets all the criteria.
“We believe we’re able to meet the criteria with the help of our partners, and this will be a very quick turnaround on the $5 billion announcement,” she said. “Applications need to be in by the end of March to the beginning of April, and I think they [federal government] will start distributing funds as soon as they have projects.”
The infrastructure funding would help support a new patient tower at Nanaimo Regional General Hospital as well as a cardiac catheterization lab, priorities advocated by local health-care groups.
