CALGARY — Will Morlidge wishes his wife had lived to see the groundbreaking of the new Calgary Cancer Centre.
Morlidge and his four-year-old daughter Virginia were on hand Friday for the groundbreaking of the new $1.4-billion facility to be build on the Foothills Hospital site.
"I'm standing in today for my wife Rebecca," Morlidge said. "I had the honour of being Rebecca's husband for just over 10 years and sadly Rebecca was overcome by a reoccurrence of her cancer this last August. She lost the battle."
Morlidge said his wife worked behind the scenes as a volunteer with the Patient and Family Advisory Council — the committee working behind the new centre — a role he has now taken on.
"We have a four-year-old daughter and when the new cancer centre is complete she will be able to say that Daddy helped finish what Mommy started."
Work began on the centre last month. It's scheduled to be completed in 2023 and will include outpatient cancer clinics, 160 inpatient unit beds, more than 100 chemotherapy chairs, double the space for clinical trials and research laboratories.
The issue became a political football with variations of a new cancer centre being floated by the former Progressive Conservative government just prior to the 2015 election.
Premier Rachel Notley was on hand for the official ceremony.
"The new Calgary Cancer Centre was a dream some feared would never come true. Over and over this centre was promised and promised just as the actual work was pushed back again and again," Notley said.
"Today however....we are in fact delivering and the dream of a new state-of-the-art cancer centre in Calgary is becoming a reality."
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The Canadian Press
