Health Minister Adrian Dix has opened the Kamloops Urgent Primary Care and Learning Centre, the second in B-C.
Dix says it’s going to make a real difference, by using a team-based model of care pointing out 44% of patients in the emergency room at Royal Inland hospital are there for primary care because they do not have a family doctor.
He called the situation at the Royal Inland ER “really challenging.”
Dix says its the first care clinic outside of the lower mainland and located on Columbia street at Royal Inland Hospital’s Clinical Services Building.
“It is just the practical reality. A lot of people need a family doctor in Kamloops and they need to be attached to it and this is a means of attachment. Come here to get care and then to be attached to a family doctor that’s your regular family doctor in Kamloops and teams of family doctors and nurse practitioners is important.”
The centre will begin by opening in the evenings, seven days a week, in June 2018.
After it is fully operational in the fall of 2018, it will be open every day from 10 a.m. to 10 p.m., year-round, with rolling 24-hour appointment booking.