Construction rolling on new Calgary cancer centre
Posted Jan 14, 2019 3:03 pm.
This article is more than 5 years old.
CALGARY (660 NEWS) — While it is not due to officially open until 2023, Premier Rachel Notley gave an update on the construction of Calgary’s new cancer centre.
It will replace the ageing Tom Baker Cancer Centre, which has been at capacity since 2003.
At this point, over 37,000 cubic metres of concrete — or enough to fill 15 Olympic-sized swimming pools — has been poured.
A major feature will be 12 radiation therapy rooms, the walls of which are six-feet thick to protect people from radiation.
Once complete, it will be a major feature of Alberta’s health care system.
“The biggest free-standing cancer centre in the country,” touted Premier Rachel Notley.
It comes at a time where the need for these facilities continues to grow.
“Currently, over 3,300 patients a year get radiation therapy at the Tom Baker Centre,” Notley said. “And we need to be able to meet an anticipated 60 per cent increase in demand by 2030.”
To do that, the new centre will have over 100 patient exam rooms, 160 inpatient unit beds, and more than 100 chemotherapy chairs.
“Taken together, they will nearly double the current Tom Baker Cancer Centre’s capacity to treat patients with radiation therapy,” the premier added.
Notley said this project has been decades in the making and is very pleased to see it progress under her government’s leadership.
She also took aim at past governments, who may have prioritized balancing the budget ahead of maintaining health care capability.
“By keeping places like the Tom Baker Centre overcapacity from 2003, to when this is built in 2023, that kind of Alberta advantage is not, frankly, what Albertans want to see continued.”
The project is budgeted to cost $1.4 billion and will create over 1,500 jobs over the next six years.
