Vernon will soon be getting a second urgent and primary care centre, helping to fill the healthcare gap that emerged in the city when two private walk-in clinics closed last year.
B.C. Premier David Eby made the announcement at a roundtable with Interior Health leadership in Vernon Friday Aug. 23.
Eby remarked that making the announcement at the Vernon Health Unit felt "a little bit like telling you what you're already working on," as "half the people in the room are involved in planning" the forthcoming centre, which is expected to open in late 2025.
The new centre will be open to provide urgent primary care seven days a week, including statutory holidays. Like the existing centre on 28th Avenue, it will provide same-day care within 12 to 24 hours for people with health concerns that do not require an emergency department visit. Conditions such as sprains, cuts, high fevers and minor infections will be treated at the centre, which is designed to take stress off of the emergency department at Vernon Jubilee Hospital while still providing timely urgent care.
Interior Health leadership said Friday that the new centre will be able to handle about 150 patient visits per day.
Interior Health president and CEO Susan Brown said the new centre is a "significant step towards delivering comprehensive, timely care that supports the overall health and well-being of the people of Vernon."
Eby said Interior Health has advised that the existing centre in Vernon has seen 28,000 patient visits and has attached 2,540 patients, calling this "quite an astonishing level of work."
The need for more healthcare options in Vernon was heightened last year when both the Superstore and Sterling Centre walk-in clinics closed doors. In an interview with The Morning Star prior to Friday's the announcement, Eby said he thinks the new centre will "bring us back to an excess of the level of service that people saw in the community" before the closures of those private clinics, factoring in the opening of a part-time clinic at the CareConnect I.D.A. Pharmacy.
Highlighting Vernon's current challenges, Interior Health leadership informed Eby that in Vernon's "heyday" when it had three walk-in clinics, the city had 172 hours of walk-in clinic time available to the public. Today, just 39 hours are available between the part-time walk-in clinic and the existing urgent and primary care centre.
The existing urgent and primary care centre has a mandate to service Vernon's marginalized population, and was strategically located downtown to reduce barriers to care for the street entrenched population. As a result, it has less time dedicated to urgent care than will be seen at the new centre.
A location has not yet been selected for the new centre, though Interior Health leadership said an existing building will most likely be procured rather than a new one built. Once a location is selected, Interior Health will proceed with the request for proposal process for construction services.
There are currently nine urgent and primary care centres in the Interior Health region, including centres in Ashcroft, Castlegar, Cranbrook, Kamloops, Kelowna, Penticton, Rutland, Vernon, and West Kelowna. Eby said Vernon's second centre will be the 40th of its kind announced by the B.C. NDP government.
