Access to Healthcare

Healthcare delivery is a provincial responsibility, but land use, zoning, parking, and political pressure all sit with the municipality. Council has more leverage here than it has used, and a councillor's actual reach is narrower than the file suggests. The commitments below are the ones a city council can credibly keep.

Main points

• Study whether the City should run its own primary care clinic. One year of serious work gives either a real project or a definitive answer.
• Fight for the Patient Tower and the cardiac catheterization lab at the regional hospital. The hospital serves everyone between Victoria and Campbell River, and the Province has been promising the expansion for years.
• Lobby for a Mental Health and Addictions Emergency Room. The Seniors' Emergency Room works. A specialized intake is the next step.
• Use the Hospital transit-oriented designation to build a medical neighbourhood. Provincial rules already require higher density at the Hospital exchange. Use them to enable clinics, professional offices, and staff housing within walking distance of the regional hospital.
• Manage the Cancer Centre construction phase actively. Two years of construction at the regional hospital is two years of patient and staff disruption if no one is managing it.
• Support Indigenous-led care for Indigenous patients. The most effective model is Snuneymuxw First Nation and Tillicum Lelum delivering primary care and mental health to their members, on reserve where possible and in dedicated facility space where not.
• Bring back free street parking downtown and at the hospital. Simple, popular, cheap.

Policy detail

The municipal primary care clinic question

Several Canadian cities have moved into primary care delivery when the Province has been slow to act. Hamilton operates a city-supported clinic. Penticton council voted in 2023 to study a municipally-backed clinic for unattached patients. The model is not exotic. The question for Nanaimo is whether it is the right answer here.

What the next council should commit to is one year of serious work. Staff time to pull the financial model, the staffing options, the legal structure (whether the City directly runs it, contracts it to a non-profit, or partners with the local Division of Family Practice), and the provincial funding hooks that would make it sustainable. At the end of that year, the council either has a real project to fund or a documented case for why the model does not fit Nanaimo. Either way, the 20,000 residents currently without a family doctor get a clearer answer than they have today.

The fight for the Patient Tower, the cath lab, and the Mental Health Emergency Room

The Nanaimo Regional General Hospital is the central healthcare facility for the catchment between Victoria and Campbell River, more than 400,000 people. The Province has been promising the Patient Tower expansion for years. Two hundred and forty doctors signed a public petition for it. Council should be the loudest voice in the room beside them, not a body that occasionally writes a letter when asked.

The cardiac catheterization lab is the closest to a deliverable in the near term. Patients currently travel to Victoria or Vancouver for procedures that should be available locally. The capital case is straightforward. The political work is keeping it visible and keeping the file moving when provincial attention shifts.

The Mental Health and Addictions Emergency Room is the longer-term advocacy file. The existing Seniors' Emergency Room at the regional hospital has worked. A specialized intake for the mental health and addictions crises that currently move through the main Emergency Room is the next logical step. Other Canadian cities have built these. The capital case and the operational case can both be made, and the next council should make them.

A medical neighbourhood, using existing Provincial tools

Provincial transit-oriented designation rules adopted in 2024 give Nanaimo a tool it has not yet used. The Hospital and University area is one of three sites in the city designated as a Transit-Oriented Area, which means provincial law requires the City to allow higher density and to remove residential parking minimums within four hundred metres of the bus exchange.

That tool was designed for housing. It also works for medical clinics, professional offices, and staff housing close to the regional hospital. Doctors want to live near where they work. Specialists want to practise near where they admit. Recruitment is partly a land-use problem, and the City has the legal authority to fix it.

The next council should direct staff to amend the local zoning to allow medical and professional uses within the Hospital transit-oriented area, alongside the residential density the provincial rule requires, and to fast-track applications for the kinds of buildings that will house the workforce the regional hospital needs. The medical neighbourhood is the cheapest and most direct contribution a city council can make to fixing the family doctor shortage.

Managing the Cancer Centre construction phase

The new BC Cancer Centre at the regional hospital broke ground in October 2025 and is targeted for completion in 2028. Twenty thousand annual treatments, including radiation therapy, will be delivered locally instead of requiring patients to travel to Victoria or Vancouver. That is a major win for the region.

The construction phase that runs through 2028 is also a real management problem. A new surface-level parking lot at Boundary Avenue and Nelson Street opened in 2025. A three-storey parkade at Dufferin Crescent and Boundary Avenue is targeted for 2026. That brings roughly 190 new spaces. It is not enough on its own to absorb both the construction-period parking loss and the existing patient-and-staff demand.

The next council should treat the construction-period transit access, parking phasing, patient drop-off coordination, and the Wheels of Hope volunteer driver program as an active municipal file. Two years of badly managed access at the regional hospital is two years of missed appointments, delayed treatments, and unnecessary stress for patients who are already managing serious illness.

Indigenous-led care for Indigenous patients

The most effective health care for Indigenous patients is delivered by Indigenous-led organizations. The First Nations Health Authority, established by agreement among the Province, the federal government, and BC First Nations, exists to deliver on that conclusion at the provincial level. Where the model is implemented, outcomes improve.

In Nanaimo, the implication is concrete. Snuneymuxw First Nation and Tillicum Lelum already carry meaningful primary care and mental health capacity for Indigenous patients. Expanding that capacity further, on Snuneymuxw reserve land where the Nation has full operational authority, is the strongest model. Where reserve-based delivery is not yet possible, dedicated facility space staffed by Indigenous personnel is the next-best fallback.

The City's role is advocacy for the funding and the structure that make this the default. Council should support the First Nations Health Authority's expansion of Indigenous primary care and mental health services on Vancouver Island, write letters of support for capital projects on Snuneymuxw lands, and ensure City partnerships with the Nation include the operational and financial structure to grow Indigenous-led services rather than running parallel City programs that duplicate them.

Free street parking downtown and at the hospital

Patients, caregivers, and downtown shoppers all need it. The revenue from metered downtown parking is a fraction of the friction it produces, and the parking congestion at the regional hospital is a real barrier for elderly and ill patients who are not in a position to walk several blocks from a side street. A return to free street parking downtown and at the hospital is simple, popular, and cheap. It can be implemented in a single budget cycle.