Vernon's number of family doctors stays steady over 2 years: Interior Health

Photo: City of Vernon

IH unable to say exactly how many Vernonites are still without a family doctor.

There’s 58 family physicians in Vernon, the same number as two years ago.

The update came as part of a presentation from Interior Health to Vernon city council at its regular meeting on Monday.

Tracey Kirkman, Shuswap North Okanagan Division of Family Practice executive director, said while the number of family doctors has stayed the same, it includes replacement doctors for retirements.

“Of the 58 physicians, we've had four new recruits this past year – two physicians came from the UK, one came from Newfoundland, and another physician was the UBC IMG, an international medical grad who is a Canadian trained physician, but trained overseas and is now doing a two year return of service in Vernon,” said Kirkman in the meeting.

She said these new physicians helped prevent 4,000 patients from being orphaned when their family physicians retired. Kirkman also noted Vernon has a hard time recruiting doctors because it doesn’t qualify as a rural area and receive rural benefits.

For people who’ve been without a doctor long-term, 570 people have been attached to a family physician in the past six months.

“That might seem a small number, but I think in the scheme of things, if every six months we are attaching close to 600 people, we are finally making a dent and making improvements to those people who desperately need a provider,” said Kirkman.

IH was unable to say exactly how many Vernonites are still without a family doctor when asked by Coun. Kelly Fehr, but noted a 22,000 patient goal from the Ministry of Health.

Darren Klassen, director of clinical operations of primary care and public health with IHA, said there’s 4,211 people on the Health Connect registry which aims to connect unattached patients with a family doctor.

Council also heard Vernon is taking part in a pilot program which allows patients to connect to their family physicians after hours. Patients call a 1-800 number and speak to a triage nurse, and depending on the triage levels, are put through to a physician who does a zoom call.

Physicians will send urgent cases to the ER or recommend a follow up with a family doctor the next day. Kirkman said all 58 physicians and Vernon's seven nurse practitioners have signed up for the program.