Cowichan transit strike is underway<\/a>.<\/p>\n\u201cI think it\u2019s a worry for everybody,\u201d said Lake Cowichan senior Sue Alford.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd this town is not small. It\u2019s a big town,\u201d said Johnson.<\/p>\n
After months of recruiting efforts, town council is clearing the way for some much-needed relief to its health care crisis. <\/p>\n
This week, council is working on rezoning a Cowichan Lake Road property to set up a clinic for a nurse practitioner who already lives in Lake Cowichan.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI think it would give\u00a0some short-term relief. But this isn\u2019t the answer to our health needs in the west\u00a0Cowichan. We need significantly more health services, said Mayor of Lake Cowichan, Tim McGonigle.<\/p>\n
Even before setting up, McGonigle says the wait list to become a patient of the nurse practitioner already has more than 1,000 names.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve heard anecdotally 900 to 2,000. So when you look at the west Cowichan region,\u00a0we have about 6,600 population and the majority of those are my antiquity. Baby boomers and older with complex health needs,\u201d said McGonigle.<\/p>\n
Until family doctors are hired and the new clinic opens, volunteer drivers are helping fill the gap in Lake Cowichan by driving the hour-long trip, several times a week to ensure residents get to their appointments in Duncan. \u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a good program, it\u2019s a really good program,\u201d said Johnson.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey have no other way of getting there if it wasn\u2019t for our driving program,\u201d said Sue Alford, organizer of the volunteer drivers.\u00a0<\/p>\n
It\u2019s another example of a short-term, small-town solution, that is trying to help people make do. While town council continues recruiting efforts to bring doctors back to this town that needs them.<\/p>\n
READ ALSO: \u2018This is urgent\u2019: Lake Cowichan just days away from losing its last family doctor<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Sylvia Johnson climbed the steps with extra care Thursday, in Lake Cowichan. The 91-year-old says she is taking…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":139429,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[49,48,56826,84,392,75205,75206,75207,75208,75209,75210,75211,1062,75212],"class_list":["post-139428","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-healthcare","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-doctor-shortage","tag-health","tag-healthcare","tag-lake-cowichan","tag-lake-cowichan-55-centre","tag-lake-cowichan-seniors-centre","tag-new-medical-clinic","tag-nurse-practioner","tag-tim-mcgonigle","tag-town-without-doctors","tag-video","tag-wait-list"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/139428","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=139428"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/139428\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/139429"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=139428"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=139428"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=139428"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}