Village to get new doctor in fall

Jun 15, 2020 | 5:15 AM

From Japan to Lumby.

That’s the journey a graduate of the international medical doctor program will make when Dr. Moa Sugimoto begins duties in Lumby this September.

“She was supposed to write her exams in June but they’ve been pushed back to October, November, so she will still be starting in September. But because of the Covid virus they are allowing [program participants] to work without having done those exams. That’s an anomaly, not a normal thing,” said Ev Read, chairperson of the Lumby and District Health Services Society.

Dr. Sugimoto, and her family, are expected to arrive in Lumby after the Labour Day weekend, and as part of her contract, will have to stay a minimum of two years.

“We’re really hoping she will stay longer,” Read told Vernon Matters.“I told her there is a Japanese cultural centre in Vernon and they’ve touched base with them. We’re hoping she will feel welcome and be willing to have her family settle here.”

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Read said the Japanese physician is not a new doctor and had a practice in Japan.

The village currently has one full-time doctor and a locum doctor who is filling-in until the Dr. Sugimoto arrives.

Read said the village used to have three full-time doctors about six years ago.

“We have been lobbying Interior Health to let us have a nurse practitioner to help fill that gap, but that’s not going to be happening, at least not anytime soon. Interior Health, and the Ministry of Health, are into these primary care centres, so that’s where their focus is going, which doesn’t really help Lumby.”

by Pete McIntyre

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