The recent announcement by the Province to increase wages for physicians could be good news for the city of Kamloops.

That is according to Dr. Servaas Swart, the co-chair of the Health Leadership Committee within the Thompson Region Division Of Family Practice.

Speaking on the NL Morning News, he said Monday’s announcement should have an immediate impact on doctors considering family practice.

“Honestly when we heard the announcement and what the structure looks like, the basics of it, I was very excited,” he said.

“I actually had the opportunity to talk to a couple of my colleagues yesterday that are not in family practice but were registered as family physicians and already from them it sounded very promising. The new fee schedule addresses so many of our concerns, specifically considering increased business costs as well as time spent that was not direct patient care.”

The provincial government says a full-time family doctor will be paid about $385,000 a year, up from the current $250,000, under the new three-year Physician Master Agreement reached with Doctors of BC last week.

It will have to be ratified by physicians ahead of taking effect in February next year.

“You know we would spent a large portion of our time after you’ve seen you patient with administrative tasks where you were never compensated for,” Swart added. “The new fee schedule takes that into account and I think that makes it little bit more enticing for people to consider coming into family practice.”

Swart says they’ve had a specified recruitment program to attract physicians to the city. It comes as two in five Kamloops residents don’t have a family doctor, more than the provincial average of one in five.

He called the shortage of physicians in the area “a desperate situation” hoping these changes mean a rapid growth in the number of physicians in the area.

“Hopefully, you know with cooperation between ourselves as well as these government institutions and the Doctors of BC as well as the new program that we’re currently working on to entice people to come to Kamloops and with the new fee structure, we can entice more family physicians into the Kamloops area,” Swart said.

He also noted the “closeness” of the medical community in Kamloops is well known within medical circles in the province, something which could attract more doctors to the area.

“Everybody that lives here knows how great Kamloops and the area is. There are all sorts of outdoor activities that are available,” Swart said. “You know, when I speak to colleagues who work in other bigger centres, Vancouver or Kelowna, they always tell us ‘we wish we had the same kind of communication and just over all relationship with our specialists like you guys have in Kamloops.’ We’re well known to have that.”

“We’re trying to create a red carpet program for those people that come here to entice them to come to Kamloops and the area.”

“Any time we’ve spoken to the powers that be, we had [Health] Minister [Adrian] Dix here two or three years ago,” he added.

“We had an open conversation with the CEO and with the President of the Doctors of BC. Everybody knows that we’re in a unique situation here in Kamloops so, I think all of that is taken into consideration.”