Image Credit: Ronald McDonald House Charities

By Victor Kaisar

Kamloops Family Room

Ronald McDonald House Family Room in Kamloops to open in early 2025

Dec 18, 2024 | 4:23 PM

KAMLOOPS — The long-awaited Ronald McDonald House Family Room at Royal Inland Hospital (RIH) is expected to open early next year.

Interior Health’s Corporate Director of Business Operations, Todd Mastel, told the Thompson Regional Hospital District (TRHD) Board that construction is expected to be completed this winter, ahead of an early 2025 opening.

“This project is underway right now on the third floor beside our new pediatrics unit,” Mastel said. “The Ronald McDonald House Foundation as well as the Royal Inland Hospital Foundation have worked together to create a Ronald McDonald House.”

“A great addition to a hospital and a big good thanks on our part to both the Ronald McDonald House Foundation and the Royal Inland Hospital Foundation for bringing this together for us.”

The Kamloops Family Room will be the second in B.C., joining the one at Surrey Memorial Hospital.

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“It will have a respite area where [families] can be with their children, be alone, be outside of the unit but right next door, but as well we’ll have a bedroom in this Ronald McDonald House for overnight stays,” Mastel said.

The Kamloops Family Room will also have kitchen and laundry facilities, a play area, and a lounge with TV and internet access.

Speaking on CFJC Midday, Brandy Gozda-Sekhon, the owner/operator for McDonald’s restaurants in Kamloops and Merritt said one in four Canadian families don’t have specialized care in their community.

“We know that there are a lot of smaller communities that rely on us and this is just going to give them, I’m going to say a warm hug, a relief of pressure,” she said. “It’s pretty exciting.”

Plans for the Kamloops Family Room have been in the works since 2019, with the facility officially announced in 2020.

“There were 158 families that came from our area that stayed in Vancouver needing somewhere to stay while their children were being tended to,” Gozda-Sekhon added. “We’re hoping that this will bring in those families that are already having to use the hospital.”

“Having your siblings around and other children there is so important to healing and I think this is just going to help families feel better.”

It’s expected to cost a little over $100,000 to operate the Kamloops family room each year.

Where families using the Ronald McDonald House in Vancouer are from. (Image Credit: Brandy Gozda-Sekhon)