The Interior Health Authority (IHA) is close to acquiring one of the three doctors it’s hoping to place in Merritt.
Beginning in mid-July, a new general practitioner will work a two-month trial period at the Nicola Valley Hospital and Health Centre and at doctors’ clinics in town, IHA’s Dr. Jon Slater told the Herald.
“Two months is a pretty good commitment. I think if this individual is, at the end of two months, still there and still interested, I think we’ve got ourselves a doctor,” Slater said.
Slater said the doctor is an experienced family physician currently in Saskatchewan.
Slater is the executive medical director for acute services (west) with the IHA, and said more doctors are planning to begin working in Merritt part-time, but details on when they will start are to be determined.
In general, two doctors from Kelowna will work at the hospital and potentially in Merritt doctors’ offices, alternating a week at a time between them, and two more will work shifts in the hospital’s emergency room on weekends.
Slater said ideally, the IHA would like to have more doctors in Merritt with their own practices, but the process takes time.
“Whereas the doctors in Merritt could go to Vancouver and take over any existing family practice, it doesn’t work the same in reverse. We’re looking for people with an expanded skill set,” Slater said.
He said a new, two-year family practice residency program will be starting in June in Kamloops.
A large component of the program will deal with rural communities, he said.
“We’ll have opportunities to attract people straight out of training because we’ll be training them for this type of community, but all this takes time,” Slater said.
Slater said the goal is still to add three new doctors in Merritt.
“Merritt’s got an awful lot of attractions as a community. It’s relatively close to both Kelowna and Kamloops, relatively close to Vancouver, lovely geography,” he said.
The community of Logan Lake has been without a doctor since the end of February and that situation has yet to change.
IHA communications officer Michaela Swan told the Herald the IHA is optimistic they will recruit a doctor to establish a practice in Logan Lake as they’ve had some interest in the vacancy.
