B.C. has committed $2 million towards the $10-million capital campaign for the Kordyban Lodge to support cancer patients and their families.

The 2,323 square-metre (25,000-square-foot), 36-bed lodge will offer accommodation for individuals and their caregivers travelling to the BC Cancer Agency Centre for the North and will serve cancer patients from communities throughout Northern B.C.

The lodge will provide full-meal services as well as other features to support patients, including a family room, the spiritual and meditation room, a lounge, massage therapy room, library, activity room, an exercise facility, and wig and prosthetics rooms.

Construction on the lodge is expected to start in July and it is scheduled to open to patients at the same time as the Centre for the North, in the fall of 2012.

The Kordyban Lodge is named to recognize a $2-million donation from the Mary Kordyban Foundation. This single largest private donation honours the memory of longtime Prince George resident and business owner Bill Kordyban. The lodge's Novak Family Spiritual and Meditation Room and the West Fraser Timber Lounge are named in honour of $1-million gifts from the Novak family and West Fraser Timber.

The lodge will support cancer patients from rural communities across the North and reflects government's commitment to ensure the provision of services, including access to health care, is looked at through a rural lens. The Kordyban Lodge is also an important component of the Province's $106-million Northern Cancer Control Strategy, a partnership of the Province, BC Cancer Agency, Provincial Health Services Authority and Northern Health. The strategy is focused on reducing the impact of cancer in the North, and includes a range of prevention, detection and cancer care services.

Quick Facts:

• One in three British Columbians will develop some form of cancer in their lifetime, with about 22,000 new cancer patients in B.C. projected in 2011.
• More than 1,000 of these patients will reside in the North.
• The B.C. Cancer Agency predicts that in the next ten years, new cancer diagnoses in the North will rise by more than 38 per cent.
• When it is complete in the fall of 2012, the new 5,000-square-metre (54,000-square-foot) BC Cancer Agency Centre for the North will become the sixth regional cancer centre in B.C.

Learn More:

For more information on the BC Cancer Agency for the North and the Northern Cancer Control Strategy, please visit www.bccancer.bc.ca/RS/north/default.htm.

For more information on the Canadian Cancer Society please visit, www.cancer.ca.

Contact:

Ryan Jabs
Media Relations Manager
Ministry of Health
250 952-1887 (media line)

Catherine Loiacono
Manager, Media Relations
Canadian Cancer Society, BC and Yukon Division
604 675-7340
604 837-5643 (cell)