Urgent care centre opens doors Thursday in Kelowna

Kelowna's new urgent and primary care centre officially opens on Thursday.

B.C. Minister of Health Adrian Dix will officially open the centre at 11:15 a.m., at the former Bank of Montreal building beside the Capri Centre Mall.

The centre will begin seeing patients at 1 p.m.

The centre will operate full time with the equivalent of 22 employees, including registered nurses, licensed practical nurses, social workers, respiratory therapists and physiotherapists.

West Kelowna had been lobbying the province for more than a decade to get such a facility, before the Kelowna centre was announced in September.

"The new urgent and primary care centre will help connect more people in Kelowna and the surrounding communities with the health care they need, when they need it," Dix said at the time.

It will cost the province about $4.2 million a year to operate.