Photo: Contributed
If you’re living in Central Okanagan and don’t have a family physician, your chances of landing one just improved.
The Central Okanagan Division of Family Practice, in collaboration with Interior Health and the International Medical Graduate program, has recruited seven general practitioners to the region. Six have already started seeing patients, and the seventh will start Sept. 1. The CODFP has started the Central Okanagan “Find a Family Doctor” Program, which can be filled out online.
Dr. Milt Stevenson, a retired Kelowna physician who leads the recruitment charge, doesn’t plan on stopping here. There are an estimated 35,000 people in Central Okanagan who don’t have a family doctor, although Dr. Stevenson believes 10 to 12 per cent of that group does not want one for various reasons.
“I want to get it to the point where everyone who wants a family physician in the Central Okanagan can find a family physician—within reason,” Dr. Stevenson said. “Whether we’ll fully achieve that … but if you can get the number down to say four or five per cent it’s sort of like unemployment. You’re never going to get full employment, and it’s probably the same with this. It’s just human nature.”
The region’s seven new physicians will combine to accept approximately 5,000 patients over the next few months, according to CODFP estimates, but Dr. Stevenson believes that number will likely climb as high as 10,000 with all the work his organization, along with IHA, Canadian IMG and the ministry of health, is doing.
Central Okanagan areas that previously had trouble attracting physicians, like Lake Country and West Kelowna, are now stocked.
“We have a lot more doctors coming to town in the next six months that don’t have practices that are going to create new practices,” Dr. Stevenson said. “I suspect we’re going to approach 10,000 attachments, which would be a third of the people that don’t have a family doctor here.”
Dr. Stevenson is also proud of Central Okanagan’s retention numbers when it comes to new doctors. Not only are many of them coming, but most of them are staying, too.
“We’re very excited about this,” he said. “I don’t have any data, but just from feel we probably lead the province in our recruitment retention. In the last four years we’ve recruited about 40 doctors to town. It’s pretty big numbers.”
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