Urgent-care centres coming, but NDP won’t yet say where
10 urgent primarycare centres to be opened in next 12 months as part of new strategy
The Okanagan is no closer to knowing if it will get one, or more, urgent primary-care centres. This week, the provincial government introduced its new primary health-care strategy.
It includes a bunch of jargon you’ve probably never heard before.
Urgent primary-care centre is one of the terms that didn’t enter the lexicon until recently, prompting communities across the province to lobby for one.
Such centres are like amped-up walk-in clinics that are open extended hours in an effort to take pressure off hospital emergency rooms and also serve people who don’t have a family doctor.
In general, the whole strategy is aimed at providing better care in a province where 40 per cent of the provincial budget is spent on health care, yet many don’t have a family doctor.
In the past, NDP Health Minister Adrian Dix has mentioned Kelowna is an ideal candidate to get an urgent primarycare centre.
However, this week’s strategy didn’t name the communities where such centres would be set up.
The strategy did reveal that 10 centres will be opened during the next 12 months.
After Dix said Kelowna might get a centre, West Kelowna entered the fray, pointing out it should get such a centre because the community of 50,000 doesn’t have a hospital.
On Friday, the Ministry of Health would say only that it will have more to say on where urgent-care centres will be located in the coming days. There was no indication of how many days.
A Liberal MLA in Kelowna doesn’t appear to be betting on the city getting such a centre.
“Just because Adrian Dix said Kelowna would be a good place for an urgent-care centre doesn’t mean he’s agreeing to put one here,” said Kelowna-Lake Country MLA Norm Letnick.
Letnick is the opposition’s health critic.
He’ll be briefed on Victoria’s primary health-care strategy on Monday.
“They’re not going to tell me anything more than they’ve told you,” Letnick said in a phone interview with The Okanagan Weekend. “And I’m certain they won’t tell me what communities are getting urgent-care centres before they make an announcement to everybody.”
Interior Health is also in the dark.
On Friday, a spokesperson for Interior Health said the agency has heard nothing about a possible urgent-care centre in the Okanagan.
The spokesperson also mentioned that all questions about the province’s health-care vision should be directed to the government.
The announcement this week from the province did provide details on where five of 15 so-called primary-care networks will be set up over the next year.
One of the regions is the South Okanagan-Similkameen, along with Burnaby, Comox, Prince George and Richmond.
Primary-care networks use a team-based approach to get patients the care they need, be it from a doctor, nurse or other health-care provider.
The overall theme of the vision is team-based care.
It’s a fundamental shift in how health care is delivered.
Team-based care veers from the traditional family doctor model to create networks and centres where patients, whether they have a family physician or not, can access almost all the health care they will need from maternity to end of life.
The streamlined referrals through the system will allow doctors, nurses, physiotherapists, psychologists, respiratory therapists, dietitians and social workers to provide the most appropriate care.
“The NDP’s strategy seems like it’s a continuation of what the Liberals released in April 2017,” said Letnick.
“It’s all about team-based primary care. The Liberals started with $90 million, and some of the team-based care that’s come to the Central Okanagan includes the Cottonwoods (extended care), The Foundry (for youth struggling with mental illness and addiction), Sage (for all ages with mental-health and addiction problems) and eight nurse practitioners to help doctors.”
Dix said team-based care will build on many of the best practices and solutions that already exist in the province.
“These are all good things,” said Letnick.
“I’m not taking anything away from the NDP, but it is a continuation of what the Liberals first started to introduce in 2015, and I have no qualms telling you that as health critic.”