Cariboo Memorial Hospital’s chief of staff leaving primary care practice
Published 5:00 am Wednesday, November 5, 2025
As Interior Health (IH) leaders updated Williams Lake city council on Nov. 4, discussion veered off the presentation as Coun. Angie Delainey inquired about Dr. Neuhoff ending his primary care practice.
Dr. Jacques Neuhoff, chief of staff at Cariboo Memorial Hospital (CMH), was one of those presenting on behalf of IH, and discussion then went to the number of unattached patients in the community as Delainey brought up that Neuhoff will be leaving his practice.
“It has been a long-time decision that I had to make because of increasing demands on other kinds of health care within the community,” he said.
Neuhoff isn’t leaving the community, but he will be shifting his focus to more general practitioner work and anaesthesia work within the hospital and continuing in his leadership role at CMH.
With some staff coming and some like himself leaving primary care, Neuhoff said there is not a net improvement in unattached versus attached patients at the moment.
There are two new primary care physicians who have come to Williams Lake this fall under two and three-year return of service contracts who will be able to take on more unattached patients.
“We do not have a magic recipe, and unfortunately no community out there has that recipe, otherwise we would have copy and pasted,” said Neuhoff about recruitment, noting work on retention is underway.
As a result of Neuhoff leaving his primary care practice, 748 patients will have to add their names to the unattached patients list.
Delainey raised the topic of Neuhoff leaving his practice and unattached patient numbers by revealing she has not had a family doctor for about four years and is one of those already on the Health Registry’s unattached patients list.
Karen Cooper, executive director, clinical operations for Interior Health West responded to Delainey’s inquiry with an update on the current numbers for unattached patients.
With a total population in the city and surrounding area of 23, 784 according to the 2021 census, Cooper said there are 21,466 people who do have an assigned primary care provider as of September 15, 2025. She said there are 2,937 people registered on the Health Connect Registry.
Interior Health said a third physician has also matched to the community for a primary care role (family physician) on a two-year return-of-service contract beginning in the fall of 2026.