The founder of ICCHA Wish Fund in Kamloops is renewing a years-old call for government to support a catheterization lab coming to Royal Inland Hospital.

Al Patel says the ICCHA Wish Fund has raised $200,000 of its million-dollar fundraising goal for the cath lab.

A cardiac cath procedure is done to see how well the heart is working, and some common issues can be fixed during that.

“And we ask our government to endorse that for Kamloops. Because our people are travelling all the way to Kelowna just for a test. And that is a challenge.”

Patel says its “tragic” for a city the size of Kamloops to not be able to treat heart attack patients in the local hospital.

“We’ve come to a cardiac care unit… Four beds, where very critical patients with heart attacks are given the opportunity to be looked after with very specialized equipment 24-7. Royal Inland Hospital never had that, and it just was established in 2019. We are in the 21st century and I think this care should go beyond that,” he says.

“We’ve given an echocardiogram, where the doctors can see the blockages. But they cannot do anything. We need them to be treated here locally, rather than on the back of an ambulance all the way to Kelowna.”