Interior Health is introducing its newest medical health officer, the first in nearly 10 years who will be based in Kamloops.
Dr. Carol Fenton started as a medical health officer with IHA in Kelowna last month, and will be permanently moving to Kamloops later this year.
The health authority says she is currently supporting the region’s response to COVID-19.
“Like all of our MHOs, she will be engaged in work in local communities as well as IH-wide priorities,” spokesperson Susan Duncan tells NL News, also saying the health authority is grateful for the timing of her arrival.
Duncan also says Fenton was recruited before the pandemic started.
This comes a day after Kamloops mayor Ken Christian told media the health authority has hired an MHO in the Tournament Capital, for the first time in close to 10 years.
“Kamloops is a city of 100,000, we should not be without a medical health officer. We need one, we’ve needed one, and we especially need one today,” Christian said on Wednesday.
“I think that will help in terms of (media) access, and having that direct contact, as well as the potential for a medical health officer to advise local government, not just Kamloops but local government in this region, about some of the decisions that we’ve had to make in response to this outbreak.”
Fenton joins four other medical health officers who work in Interior Health region who are all based in Kelowna, headed by interim chief medical health officer Dr. Sue Pollock.
Duncan also says Dr. Rob Parker has come out of retirement this month to support IHA’s response to the pandemic; Parker was a medical health officer and public health physician from 1992 until retiring in 2015.
“IH’s medical health officers and all members of the Population Health and Public Health team are doing exceptional work across our region’s many communities during this challenging time,” Duncan says.