‘Not enough beds’: Nanaimo hospital expansion highlighted in provincial budget consultation report
Published 9:12 am Wednesday, August 26, 2026
An expansion to Nanaimo Regional General Hospital was among the list of priorities expressed throughout B.C. for the upcoming 2027 provincial budget.
Released on Aug. 11, the Budget 2027 Consultation report by the Select Standing Committee on Finance and Government Services serves to identify key priorities for the next fiscal year, using input received through its consultations.
Communities consulted included Smithers, Dawson Creek, Prince George, Cranbrook, Kelowna, Castlegar, Burnaby, Mission, Vancouver, Victoria and Nanaimo.
The committee, in the resulting report, recommended advancing the NRGH expansion, stating that “the proposed catheterization laboratory and new patient tower are important investments.”
According to the document, multiple participants expressed support for proceeding with the expansion, including a new patient care tower and cardiac catheterization lab.
“The Nanaimo Regional Hospital District noted that the hospital does not have enough beds and Nanaimo is the largest centre in Canada without a cardiac catheterization lab,” it read.
Among the committee’s listed recommendations, it urged the province to “advance the Nanaimo Regional General Hospital expansion.”
That wasn’t the only health-care item on the list, with others including making a clear construction timeline for the Burnaby Hospital Phase 2 redevelopment; funding and prioritizing high-barrier detoxification, addiction, and mental health treatment beds; as well as strengthen disease prevention by expanding access to vaccines and immunization programs, among many others.
Following the 2026 budget document being released earlier this year, the Ministry of Infrastructure told the News Bulletin that the government is advancing the development of a concept plan for a new tower and expansion of cardiac services at NRGH, which they estimated would take up to 18 months to complete.
Donna Hais, chair of the Fair Care Alliance, an organization comprised of doctors, health-care advocates and politicians calling for equitable care north of the Malahat, said she feels encouraged by the mention, but remains “cautious.”
“My concern is I don’t see timing around it, I don’t see guidelines around it, I don’t see next steps listed around it other than there needs to be an investment. We all know we’re in concept planning now, which is excellent, but those of us who live in this region need to see some timing to know some serious planning is happening around that,” Hais said.
Residents, she said, can’t stop the advocacy, because “it very easily could fall off the table.”
“We need to keep this at the forefront of peoples’ minds, and we need to understand that we’re in a critical situation right now, and the only way to rectify that is for commitment on all levels of government to invest here at our hospital,” Hais said.
On Sept. 24, the Fair Care Alliance is hosting a public health forum at 5 p.m. in the Vancouver Island Conference Centre.
During the event, Hais said all municipal election candidates will be invited to attend.
“It will be an education piece to understand how our health-care infrastructure is actually funded and where responsibilities lay,” Hais said. “It is also going to be, in some ways, a wake-up call for those who are running to understand even though they do their due diligence in collecting their tax dollars they don’t necessarily get a say in where those tax dollars are directed or the timing of those tax dollars being directed.”
jessica.durling@nanaimobulletin.com