Work ongoing to bring more health care workers, services to Vernon

Jun 10, 2025 | 11:41 AM

Some progress has been made to recruit more health care professionals in Vernon and the North Okanagan.

Interior Health and local health service representatives made a presentation to Vernon City Council Monday, June 9, where it outlined some of the work done to enhance the local health care services.

The health care officials told council that four new doctors had been brought into Vernon, including two from the United Kingdom with assistance from a local pharmacist, though noted the number of practicing family physicians had stayed flat over the course of the past year at 58 due to others retiring.

It was noted that Vernon does face a challenge in not being deemed a “rural community” by the province, and therefore cannot access financial incentives meant to attract doctors to serve the local population.

“So when a physician is given an opportunity to work in Vernon or to work in Salmon Arm, all things being equal, I think physicians will chose to go to a community where they get a whole host of incentives, and that is certainly a detriment to trying to recruit into Vernon,” Tracey Kirkman, Executive Director for the Shuswap North Okanagan Division of Family Practice, told council.

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It was also noted that the residency housing program, spearheaded by Community Futures North Okanagan, had been successful so far.

“Of the four residents who started in June of 2024, we know for a fact that three of them are staying, one of them is moving on to do additional training,” Kirkman said Monday.

“This is just underlining the fact that residents will stay in a community where they are being trained.”

The second round of the program, where medical students complete their two-year residency in Vernon, will see four new students move into the affordable housing complex on July 1.

“Every year we get to have a pool of eight residents who potentially are going to stay in the community, which is going to be the biggest source of recruitment that we’ve had in the 15 years that I’ve been with the division,” Kirkman noted.

“We’re very optimistic that this will yield dividends. The feedback that we’ve received from the residents is they love the housing; the program is wonderful; they’re getting the support from the community, the physicians and the hospital; and that Vernon is going to be the place to be moving forward.”

The health authority officials also stated the Care Connect IDA Pharmacy Walk-In Clinic was open and operational to provide Vernonites with health care services; the first Urgent Primary Care Centre (UPPC) in the city averaged roughly 73 patients connecting with nurse practitioners each day to receive care; and the service plan had been submitted to the Ministry of Health for approval for the second UPCC.

The second Urgent Primary Care Centre will operate slightly differently than the one already established in Vernon.

“Our current UPCC is delivering two types of care: it’s delivering longitudinal, family practice care for 2,400 patients, and episodic same-day care, with a particular focus on vulnerable patient populations,” Darren Klassen, IH’s Director of Clinical Operations for Primary Care and Public Health, told council Monday.

“Our second UPCC will be physically differentiated from our current location, it will be entirely focused on episodic care and not attaching more patients but ensuring people have timely access to same day primary care services as they need them, and that those episodic care opportunities are available for the entire community and not just a particular focus on one population.”

Kirkman added a Recruitment Working Group had been formed within IH to find ways to attract health care professionals to Vernon and the Okanagan, and that IH was investigating what had been deemed the “Colwood Model,” which saw the city on Vancouver Island hire family doctors as municipal employees to ensure they worked in the community. Kamloops City Council also recently approved adopting that model, though an update on how that was being applied in the city was not provided.

IH emphasized the need for more family doctors and health care services in Vernon, saying roughly 4,200 residents had signed up on the new Health Connect Registry, where people can express interest in being added to a waitlist for a primary care provider. It was noted this reflected only the number of people who had signed up and not the total number of Vernon residents not connected to a family doctor. Of that total, roughly 570 Vernon residents who used that registry were connected with family physicians between September 2024 and April 2025.

Additionally, a report from Community Futures North Okanagan (CFNO) Monday also stated that agency was continuing to explore options for a Community Health Centre. It was noted that the province had recently announced new funding to support these types of health care facilities, and CFNO was going to investigate that program to see if it could be used for a local health centre.

The presentations from IH and CFNO were accepted as information Monday.

Following the meeting, Mayor Victor Cumming said he was pleased with the ongoing work to bolster the local health care services.

“I think our group here in the Divison of Family Practice and the support group at Vernon Jubilee Hospital have done great work on attracting physicians,” Cumming told Vernon Matters.

“I think Community Futures North Okanagan has done a great job related to providing housing for residents, that’s people who have finished their medical degree and are here for two years taking their residency, that means they can come direct to Vernon and they have a place to sleep, a beautiful place to sleep.”

He said while there was “tremendous community work” to bring in more health care workers and “give them a community hug” by supporting and building connections with them, the mayor recognized the need for these efforts.

“We are fully aware that there are thousands of people in Vernon who do not have a primary care physician, so we’re working at that very hard,” Cumming said.

“That number is at least 4,000 people who are actively looking, but that number is much higher. The estimation is that in the North Okanagan and the Shuswap combined area there’s more than 20,000 people who don’t have a primary care physician or a nurse practitioner.

“Do we have a problem? Yes. Are they working on it? Yes. Are we making progress? The answer is yes.”

by Liam Verster

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