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The Canadian Press - ONLINE EDITION

Kelowna-area First Nation plans high-tech private hospital on band land

By: The Canadian Press

Posted: 04/12/2012 11:16 AM | Comments: 0 | Last Modified: 04/12/2012 7:43 PM

Robert Louie, chief of the Westbank First Nation, near Kelowna B.C. (POSTMEDIA NEWS ARCHIVES)

KELOWNA, B.C. - A British Columbia aboriginal band has plans to build a state-of-the-art private hospital on its land overlooking Okanagan Lake, just a stone's throw from Kelowna, B.C.

Band Chief Robert Louie said in an interview with CHBC television that self-government gives his band the right to build the hospital without provincial interference.

"Well, we can't use the word private hospital, but it has the makings of a facility that people will pay for," he said.

Construction on the $120-million proposed facility could begin by later this year. The building would be three or four stories and have 100 beds.

Louie said it would offer full hospital services, except for emergency, psychiatric and obstetrical treatments. Patients would pay the entire cost of their stay. It would operate outside Canada's medicare system.

"We're not going to rely on the public system, we're not going to rely on taxpayers to foot the bill," Louie said, noting his community is trying to tap into the lucrative medical tourism business.

"Why not keep the money here? That's part of our focus."

Louie said band members voted 92 per cent in favour of the project, Louie says construction will begin this year or 2013 at the latest.

"There's no absolute guarantee, but things do look good, they look promising."

A statement from the B.C. Health Ministry declined to comment on the venture.

"It would be premature for the ministry to comment on the merits or legality of such a clinic, in the absence of any detail around the proposal itself and how it might fit with existing federal legislation, including the provisions of the self-government agreement between the Westbank First Nations and the federal government and the Canada Health Act."

Private hospitals are not unique in British Columbia.

Vancouver hosts the Cambie Surgery Centre, which bills itself as "the most modern and only free standing private hospital of its type in Canada."

Among the specialties it bills are arthroscopic surgery, gynecology, vascular surgery and neurosurgery.

Elsewhere in Vancouver, the private False Creek Healthcare Centre has grown to include services such as family practice, urgent care and pathology.

Charging patients for services funded through medicare is illegal under the Canada Health Act, and the federal government has withheld portions of health transfer payments from B.C. and other provinces when they've allowed the practice.

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