Dr. Catherine Nowierski\u2019s resignation<\/a>.<\/p>\nThe other doctor \u2013 Dr. Signy Frank \u2013 is currently weighing her options, though she is not accepting any new patients during this transition period.<\/p>\n
\u201cFor privacy reasons, we are unable to comment specifically about the internal staffing matters with STEPS,\u201d O\u2019Toole said, in a July 22 statement. \u201cWe do own the clinic and, as such, play a role as a partner in seeing our community has continuing healthcare services.\u201d<\/p>\n
O\u2019Toole told CFJC that in addition to trying to restore service five days a week, the operational changes were made keeping staff at the clinic in mind.<\/p>\n
\u201cThese are our friends, these are our neighbours, and many were there at the clinic when STEPS took over,\u201d he said. \u201cWe are hoping to retain all of those staff \u2013 including the doctors. If there are gaps, we\u2019ll make plans to fill those gaps as they come up.\u201d<\/p>\n
O\u2019Toole says a new Working Group has been tasked with providing recommendations on the healthcare needs in Sun Peaks which will be used to find a new operator for the clinic through a Request for Proposals (RFP) process.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur goal is to do anything to limit the negative impacts and anything that will help us transition as smoothly and as stress free as possible to ensure that there are no gaps or very little gaps in healthcare provision over that period in the fall,\u201d O\u2019Toole said.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a pretty right turnaround and we know that.\u201d<\/p>\n
STEPS said updates will be sent directly to patients as those details are confirmed over the course of this transition period.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe understand the concerns and the disruption that this has, and so patients of Dr. Nowierski should reach out directly to her,\u201d O\u2019Leary said. \u201cDr. Frank will also community her plans directly to her patients and any other inquires about the plans for the Sun Peaks Health Centre should be directed to the Mayor.\u201d<\/p>\n
O\u2019Toole added that he understands there are people who are concerned about the changes at a time when many in the Kamloops area are without a family doctor. But he\u2019s also confident that Sun Peaks will emerge with a \u201cstrong health and wellness model.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI think that Dr. Frank is definitely exploring her options and I have not closed the door on Dr. Nowierski working and being a part of this community,\u201d O\u2019Toole said. \u201cI don\u2019t think its a slam dunk that just because she resigned from the STEPS model that that means she is not going to necessarily be here.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI also think there is the opportunity to also recruit other people even though its not an easy feat. But on the flip side, Sun Peaks is a pretty attractive place for people to want to live and work and its up to us to make sure that people understand that.\u201d<\/p>\n
Unlike Kamloops<\/a>, Sun Peaks isn\u2019t actively looking to operate the clinic as a municipality as its \u201cnot the preferred situation.\u201d<\/p>\n\u201cOur preference would be to have a third-party to take that on and we would provide support but we\u2019ll cross that bridge when we come to it,\u201d O\u2019Toole said, noting more information on what the changes mean is expected to come at the next Sun Peaks council meeting on Aug. 5.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf we don\u2019t get requests or expressions of interest, we\u2019ll take a look and see what that means and what are alternatives are at that point.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cWe felt that long-term health of the clinic would best be served if we looked in a different…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":26692,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[49,48,84,392],"class_list":["post-26691","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-healthcare","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-health","tag-healthcare"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26691","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=26691"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26691\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/26692"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26691"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26691"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26691"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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