ABOVE: Linda Gardener, a prevention service assistant at the Osoyoos Health Centre, and Mark Watt, Interior Health’s director of health services for Osoyoos and Oliver, sort through packed boxes and bins at the health centre’s Main Street home on Jan. 15. The centre moves into Sagebrush Lodge this weekend. Photo by Paul Everest - Click on picture for larger image
OSOYOOS TIMES-January 20, 2010
By Paul Everest – Osoyoos Times
Osoyoos’s Sagebrush Lodge is about to have new tenants.
The Osoyoos Health Centre is moving from its home on Main Street to the former care facility on 89th Street which has been more or less vacant since October of 2008, when the seniors who were residing there moved to the Mariposa Gardens care facility on Hwy. 97.
The move is scheduled to be completed by Jan. 25.
Mark Watt, Interior Health’s director of health services for Osoyoos and Oliver, said the main reason for the move is space.
Sagebrush Lodge will provide the health centre with three times the amount of room as the Main Street facility, he said.
While the Main Street building provided only 371 square metres of space for the centre’s services, the health centre will be able to stretch out across roughly 836 square metres at the lodge.
Overall, Sagebrush Lodge is about 2,300 square metres in size, Watt said, and the remaining space will hopefully be leased out to other tenants.
He said Interior Health has a contract with local realtors to fill the space with professional service providers that will compliment the health centre such as private physiotherapy offices or a pharmacy.
The move will also mean a number of services that could not fit into the centre’s Main Street location, such as chronic disease management, a psychiatrist’s office and community rehabilitation, will now be available in Osoyoos.
Such programs were based in Oliver before.
Watt said about 17 full-time and part-time Interior Health employees work out of the health centre’s 10 offices on Main Street and another 25 health workers use the facility as a home base.
Sagebrush Lodge will provide a larger amount of office and meeting-room space.
“This is all worth it,” said Linda Gardener, a prevention service assistant at the centre.
She added that in some cases, between two and four people were sharing an office and the current centre’s meeting room was always in use by various groups.
“We’re just juggling around each other with this building.”
Interior Health has leased the Main Street facility since 1967.
Jim Zakall, the Town of Osoyoos’s finance director, said the annual lease payment for the facility was $22,400.
He added that the Town has no immediate plans for the Main Street building.
The option to lease the building was no longer available and so the health authority decided last year to move its services to Sagebrush Lodge, which was opened in 1982.
Although the lodge was vacated in 2008, Interior Health retained ownership of the building.
The facility was used by Elections BC during last May’s provincial election.
Health centre staff were busy packing up medical supplies and office equipment last week in preparation for this weekend’s move, Watt said, but certain items, such as biological fridges, won’t be shipped until the last minute.
Vaccines will be transported to the Oliver Health Unit in coolers so that they remain at a constant temperature while the move takes place.
The last day of operations at the current health centre is Jan. 21.
Only urgent and emergency care will be available at the Main Street facility on Jan. 22.
The same applies to Sagebrush Lodge on Jan. 25.
Sagebrush Lodge has undergone a facelift to accommodate the health centre’s arrival.
Greyback Construction has been carrying out renovations since late last year to turn dining rooms into meeting rooms and to convert former residential rooms into offices with access to data services.
Doors have also been installed in some of the hallways to separate Interior Health’s space from the parts of the building that will be leased out.
The health centre’s hours— 8 a.m. to 12 p.m. and 1 to 4 p.m., Monday to Friday— will remain the same once the move is complete.
For more information, call 250-495-6433.
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