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Interior Health and the KGH Foundation unveiled its new mobile medical van on Wednesday.
Interior Health is adding 10 new clinical positions to the Outreach Urban Health Primary Care team and a $260,000 donation from the KGH Foundation has paid for the van.
"It's a big day for us," said Emma Guerrero Mohajir with Interior Health.
"We're launching our integrated health outreach team. It is bridging that gap for access to health care for individuals living with homelessness or in non-traditional housing settings. What we're going to provide is responsive mobile access to health care for individuals in the Central Okanagan, seven days a week."
The van will travel between Peachland and Lake Country providing care to the unhoused at local shelters, supportive housing sites encampments and social service agencies.
The van and the medical team is modelled after similar ones in Vancouver Coastal Health and the Vancouver Island Health Authority.
"Rather than having folks try to get to Outreach Urban Health or the hospital, we can bring those folks to the people in need, to the shelters," said Luke Brimmage IH director of primary care.
"That's our focus, is bringing our team with the van to each of the shelters in the community, to places where people are congregating that need care, that can't get care."
The van will provide services such as episodic primary care, wound care, medication support and clinical referral.
"So our hope is that our support will get this team out in the community. It's not a one-time pilot project. This is something that is going to stay," said Allison Young with the KGH Foundation.
"You basically take services you'd have at the clinic or at outreach or in the hospital and you're bringing them into communities. So our hope is that will actually help our hospitals so that people are getting their needs met before they're at a place that they need to arrive at the emergency department."
"I know the team at the outreach clinic has been dreaming this up for some time but the speed at which we were able to see this project come together because of partnerships really gives me hope around what else we can get behind in this community to really make a difference," Young added.
