Campaign renews talk of health care for Westsiders

NDP pledging to build new facilities if elected

The idea of an urgent-care centre in West Kelowna could be revived if the NDP wins next month’s provincial election.

The party is pledging to build new facilities staffed by doctors, nurses, mental-health workers and other health-care professionals.

“We’re going to build urgent-care centres and make team-based primary care the model for primary care in B.C.,” NDP Leader John Horgan said Tuesday. “People who need help will get it faster, and it will relieve pressure on emergency rooms.”

The NDP press release doesn’t indicate where such centres might be built.

But Shelley Cook, the NDP candidate for Kelowna West, says the Westside would merit consideration for an urgent-care centre.

“That’s obviously an area that has a rapidly expanding population, with evolving health-care needs,” Cook said. “I think an urgent-care centre would certainly be looked at for West Kelowna.”

Asked about the prospect of a Westside urgent-care centre, the NDP main communications office emailed a statement that read: “Once we form government we will work with local governments and health authorities to address the needs across the province and make decisions on priorities after we’ve done an overall assessment.”

In 2010, Interior Health bought a 3.4-hectare property in downtown Westbank at the corner of Butt Road and Elliott Road for $3.45 million.

That raised expectations among many in the community that enhanced health-care services were coming to the Westside, and 15,000 people signed a petition asking for both urgent-care and outpatient services.

But in 2012, IH sent the City of West Kelowna a letter saying the municipality should pursue a third-party partnership for a health-care facility.

A new stand-alone Westside health-care facility was not ranked as a high priority by IH.

Between 2008 and 2012, according to the report of a consultant hired by West Kelowna, the number of Westsiders treated at Kelowna General Hospital’s emergency ward and other Valley hospitals had actually declined by 20 per cent.

The drop was attributed to an increase in the number of new and expanded walk-in clinics on the Westside. Consultant Joanne Konnert, a former IH manager, said the need for an urgent-care facility, like a small hospital, was not apparent or justifiable given its enormous cost.

However, she did suggest improvements were needed on the Westside in areas like mental health and addictions counselling, chronic pain management, more lab and X-ray clinics, and more specialized doctor services.

In 2013, West Kelowna city council formally dropped its advocacy of a stand-alone urgent-care facility.

But the city was going to partner in 2016 with IH to provide some new health-care services, with room for expansion, in a new city hall project that was ultimately defeated by voters in a referendum last September.

Interior Health still owns the property, a former apple orchard, at the corner of Butt Road and Elliott Road. It’s currently being leased out for agricultural purposes.