A Kamloops councillor is surprised by survey results done here by the Thompson Region of the Division of Family Practice.

A survey done on 444 people in the Kamloops area says that 85 per cent of those people do have a family doctor.

But Kathy Sinclair says that may not speak to the masses.

“I found that stat quite surprising. The narrative in and around Kamloops and region, is so many people do not have a family doctor. So there wasn’t really a good explanation for why that number was so high. But it certainly is different from what we’re hearing out there on the street,” Sinclair says.

“It’s not really anything that we in Kamloops are doing wrong, it’s more that incentives are greater in other provinces. Although I’m hearing things are changing rapidly for healthcare professionals in Ontario. So maybe we’ll see some more of them here.”

Sinclair says specialists and family doctors are given better offers in most provinces, and says better offers need to happen here at a provincial level.

While presenting the results of the survey to directors with the Thompson-Nicola Regional District, the Division of Family Practice says the survey result of 85 per-cent may have been “a luck of the draw.”