New urgent and primary care centre in Vernon will help thousnds

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On Tuesday, the province announced the opening of an urgent and primary care centre in Vernon.

A new medical facility is now operating in Vernon that aims to ease the doctor crunch in the North Okanagan.

On Tuesday, the province announced the opening of an urgent and primary care centre at 3306 32nd Ave., that will allow people better access to team-based everyday health care.

"The new urgent and primary care centre will help connect more people in Vernon and the surrounding communities with the health care they need, when they need it," said Adrian Dix, Minister of Health. "By increasing the number of publicly funded health-care professionals in the community, thousands of people who currently lack a primary care provider will benefit from increased access to same-day appointments for urgent needs, ongoing primary care and better longitudinal care into the future."

Interior Health has opened the Vernon Urgent and Primary Care Centre by expanding services at the Vernon Downtown Primary Care Clinic following consultation with the Shuswap North Okanagan Division of Family Practice,

The centre will transition to a new permanent location in early 2020. The clinic will operate seven days a week, including evenings, weekends and statutory holidays.

The centre started seeing patients in October 2019.

It will deliver urgent and primary care services, and equally as important, it will also work to connect patients without a family doctor to a regular physician or nurse practitioner.

The centre will recruit general practitioners, nurse practitioners, nurses, social workers and mental health and substance use clinicians to treat patients in Vernon.

The annual operating cost of the centre will be approximately $3.5 million.

Using a team-based care approach, the centre will provide an expected 42,000 additional patient visits per year once fully operational.

The Kelowna Urgent Primary Care Centre is expected to start seeing patients late December 2019.

Urgent primary care is the care that people need within 12 to 24 hours, for conditions such as sprains, urinary problems, ear infections, minor cuts or burns.

Urgent and primary care centres are part of a comprehensive strategy to transform B.C.'s health system by bringing together and co-ordinating with health-care providers, services and programs to make it easier for people to access care, receive follow-up and connect to other services they may need.