By Michelle Gamage, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter, The Tyee Doctors at Nanaimo Regional General Hospital say the province has delayed critical hospital upgrades for 18 years, which is causing patients to unnecessarily suffer and die. Nanaimo Regional General was designated a tertiary care hospital in 2008, which means it should be able to offer just about any care a patient on the central or northern Vancouver Island may need, outside of specialist cardiac, neuro and transplant surgery, which are centralized in Vancouver or Victoria. The services that Nanaimo should be able to offer, but cannot, include a cardiac catheterization laboratory, general internal medicine, neurology and stroke care, oncology, general pediatrics, gastroenterology, palliative care and hospice, pediatric psychiatry and hematology, to name a few. But the province never followed through on…
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