Oliver Council recently invited Dr. Steve Evans President of the SOGH Medical Staff to share some very troubling information regarding the lack of doctors to staff our emergency room. In attendance were Osoyoos Mayor Stu Wells, Keremeos Mayor Walter Despot, Area ‘C’ Director Allan Patton, Area ‘A’ Director Mark Pendergraft. Due to the impending possibility that our emergency room may be forced to restrict its hours strictly to life threatening cases, Oliver Council requested me to work with MLA John Slater to organize a meeting with the Minister of Health Mike de Jong.
 
We have been fortunate to arrange a meeting on short notice and will meet with Minister de Jong Wednesday afternoon in Vancouver; accompanying us will be Doctors Evans and Kane. The doctors will present the same information shared with Council and stress that the lack of available physicians to staff the emergency room is forcing the remaining doctors to work an unacceptable number of hours outside their practices which will lead to the real danger of burn out and the possibility of clinical errors. The issue we will present to the Minister is the discrepancy between what Oliver/Osoyoos doctors are paid for emergency room shifts as opposed to their peers in Penticton. The result of this discrepancy is that Penticton’s doctors are very reluctant to provide coverage in our emergency room to assist in the staff shortfall and in some cases have refused citing loss of income. We are all very concerned that the SOGH will ultimately be closed and once this happens our residents will be forced to travel to Penticton for critical medical care. A shortage of doctors has been an ongoing problem in Oliver/Osoyoos for several years and notwithstanding our efforts to recruit additional doctors at the Rural and Remote Physicians Conference in Halifax a few years ago, the problem remains and will continue.
 
Mayor Pat Hampson, Town of Oliver

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