VANCOUVER -- Surrey's new hospital being built in Cloverdale will be home to a regional B.C. cancer treatment centre, the province's premier announced Thursday.
"Half of British Columbians will be diagnosed with cancer in their lifetime," John Horgan said. "Many of those cases will be right here in Fraser Health."
Services at the new centre will include treatment, supportive care, research and education.
This will be B.C.'s seventh regional cancer centre, with existing centres in Surrey Memorial Hospital and in Abbotsford, Vancouver, Kelowna, Prince George and Victoria.
The hospital, which will be built in Cloverdale beside the Kwantlen Polytechnic University campus, was first announced more than two years ago. The location was finalized last winter.
"The second Surrey hospital is not just a community hospital, it's a state-of-the art, 21st-century centre for health care, which has now expanded to include cancer treatment services," Health Minister Adrian Dix said.
"Though the rapidly growing city of Surrey is young, it also has an increasing population of seniors. This means the demand for cancer care will also increase, and our government is taking immediate action to improve health care for people living in this region for years to come."
The new hospital is currently in the business-plan phase, which is expected to be finalized later this year. Procurement and construction will then follow.
When the location was announced in December, Dix did not provide a timeline for the project, but said hospitals typically take between six and 10 years to build.
