A dedicated cardiac care wing in Kamloops is finally set to open again after a COVID-related staffing crunch led Royal Inland Hospital to shut its doors.

The four-bed unit will give cardiac patients already getting care their own space at Royal Inland once it finally opens almost seven years after it was closed.

Like the rest of the Interior Health region, cardiac patients in Kamloops are frequently sent to Kelowna for invasive procedures and the department opened in 2019 as part of a plan to improve specialized care at Interior Health’s second-largest hospital. In a news release, Interior Health announced plans to open it again in early 2027.

“Re-establishing coronary care at Royal Inland Hospital is a significant improvement for patients and families across the Interior. It will allow more people to receive specialized cardiac care in Kamloops, with better continuity, less travel and strong connections to B.C.’s broader cardiac care network,” BC health minister Josie Osborne said in media release from Interior Health.

While the re-opening plan was made possible through a replenished workforce, it’s not clear whether the long-awaited coronary care unit will be improved.

Last year, an Interior Health executive told iNFOnews.ca cardiac care at Royal Inland Hospital “remained the same” since 2020, despite patients being cared for in a different space.

Al Patel has been advocating for improved cardiac care for two decades and the coronary care unit is named after his charity, the ICCHA-WISH Foundation. While he celebrated the re-opening as “great news,” he questioned what, if anything, will change.

“If they’re only opening it back up, we’ve gone back five or six years,” Patel told iNFOnews.ca.

The current cardiac unit, he said, was built too far away from the intensive care and emergency departments. Interior Health has not denied that, but there are so far no plans to move it.

Patel has been fundraising and lobbying the health authority and the province, under multiple premiers, for not just a coronary care unit but a catheterization lab, too. It’s a lab that would bring specialized cardiac tests for Kamloops patients, and Patel said the health authority expects that to open in 2040, but he hasn’t received any recent updates and hopes it may be sped up.

“I’ll be dead by then. It’s not a vision, it is a failure in the government system,” he said.