A Cowichan Valley health officer is reminding the public that the region still faces many challenges in public health, even with the recent announcement of a new hospital for the area.

“We could have hospital facilities, state of the art, all over the Island, but if we aren’t doing things to help keep people healthy in the first place, very quickly all those facilities could be over census,” Island Health medical officer Dr. Shannon Waters told Gregor Craigie, host of CBC’s On the Island.

Waters recognizes that there are reasons to be excited about the new hospital, but says that acute medicine can only deal with health problems, not