Community invited to celebrate new beginning
A community celebration to mark the official ground-breaking for the $312.5-million Penticton Regional Hospital expansion will be held on Tuesday, July 12.
Cherry Lane Shopping Centre is hosting a special public event from 1 to 3 p.m. Project officials and staff from the South Okanagan Similkameen (SOS) Medical Foundation will be on hand to outline details of the new six-storey patient care tower at PRH and other aspects of the project. Enjoy a piece of free cake and write your own inspirational message on a “Chat Head” to be posted at Cherry Lane.
Janice Perrino, executive-director of the SOS Medical Foundation, praised Cherry Lane for becoming a community hub for information about the PRH expansion.
“This shows how this is truly a project that the whole regional community can take pride in,” she said. “The hospital expansion impacts every resident in the entire South Okanagan-Similkameen.”
Site preparation work for the new tower is now underway. The tower is expected to be ready to accept patients in early 2019 when work will begin on Phase 2 – an expansion of the PRH Emergency Department to almost four times its current size.
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IHA health officials touring the region this week with visits to Kamloops, Princeton and Oliver hospitals.
Previously on ODN
Innovation is the key word in IHA with Princeton now working on a new model of care that includes, doctors, nurse practitioners and specialists who come directly to the hospital rather than patients making the trek to Penticton.
New IHA CEO Chris Mazurkewich says the old system showed that only 37% of patients made it to appointments – now that figure if 98%. Quite a change he says from his former days within the system. “The culture of cooperation has changed…all for the better.”chris22
He also stated that it was a wise decision to place a rural care facility and clinic in Keremeos and he thanked Walter Despot and Roger Mayer for their “push” to get what was needed in a rural centre with a major highway running through it.
In Oliver, the new computer system has resulted in a large drop in medication errors and overall the innovation will spread to a ‘new use of it’ at the Royal Inland in Kamloops. Mazurkewich says it is a good idea to test new ideas in a smaller facility.
On questioning Mazurewich recognized that Oliver’s number one problem is staffing the emergency ward and 5 doctors are coming to see if SO General Hospital would be a good fit for them to start a practice.
Only 7 of 15 local doctors help out in the “Emerg” ward and that is beginning to take a toll on at least one physician who does everything in his power to prevent that ward from closing.
The new look of health care could come as a result of Rural Health Plans. Mazurkewich says each location and area is different and the plans will be different. There are issues of age, diabetes, mental illness, obesity etc. – each town or community should have a specific plan that acknowledges the problems and plans on how to cope with the needs of patients.
Mazurkewich says the Oliver/Osoyoos area has the highest percentage of the elderly in the province. IHA claims SOGH is the largest employer with 270 people on staff.