Kamloops city staff may soon be asked to review the Car 40 program, for responding to mental health calls.

The request would be for staff to determine if the hours of service are sufficient, and, if not, to expand it. That will likely come to council on August 25.

Councillor Dale Bass says the service only runs 9 a.m. to 7 p.m., from Tuesdays to Fridays.

“We have more mental heath issues. And not just West Vic, on the street and in the alleys, but families are having more mental health issues. I talked to one mom who has a child with special needs. And something happened and the child had become agitated, to the point where mom called for Car 40. It showed up four hours later,” Bass says. She went on to explain several other instances of people waiting more than an hour after calling for Car 40.

“Much of it may be due to this long pandemic, and the mental health of all of us. But nevertheless, we have this problem, and (the Interior Health Authority) seems to think it only happens from Tuesday to Friday between 9 a.m. and 7 p.m. And it doesn’t.”

Bass says the city and the RCMP are in favor of expanding the program, but says the executive at Interior Health has so far not endorsed doing so.

She says she and councillor Kathy Sinclair recently met with two staff members from the health authority to talk about potentially expanding Car 40.

“We met with the western regional head, and the person who is responsible for addictions – they know Kamloops well, I believe one of them lives in Kamloops – and they acknowledged that they probably wouldn’t get very far within it with their own administration, up higher. But they are also aware of the fact that it is a strange time now in Kamloops.”

When asked on the NL Morning News about why it is not in support of expanding the program, IHA chief medical health officer Dr. Sue Pollock declined to comment.