It's now become easier for Central Okanagan residents to find a family doctor.
A collaboration between the Central Okanagan Division of Family Practice and Health Match BC has allowed 40 new doctors to be hired in the region in the last three years, which will provide medical care to 5,000 new patients.
Dr. Milt Stevenson, who oversees recruitment in the region, says the screening process has been adjusted to be more cost effective – the process no longer directly involves a physician, but instead takes place online.
“Patients can go to our Central Okanagan Division of Family Practice website, and there’s a very prominent ‘Find a Doctor’ banner right in the center,” says Stevenson. “You fill in a brief medical history and submit it to us, and then we will find you a family doctor.”
Patients will be distributed geographically, meaning they won’t be able to choose their doctor, but Stevenson says this doesn’t necessarily mean that they’ll be stuck with that same doctor.
“Obviously there isn’t going to be a 100 percent fit, and someone will walk out of a meet-and-greet with a doctor and say ‘I don’t think this is going to work for me,’ and then well put them back into the system and redistribute them.”
The distribution program goes until October, and could be extended well into 2019, depending on the results that are seen.
Stevenson says approximately 30,000 people in the Central Okanagan do not currently have a family doctor.
To register, go to https://www.divisionsbc.ca/central-okanagan.