Dear Editor:

This letter is written in relation to concerns over the doctor shortage in the Town of Osoyoos.

I arrived in Osoyoos in 1975 and became the fourth doctor in this community at the time.

We now have six doctors and we have been aggressively recruiting an additional doctor for the past seven years.

Five year ago, I asked the lab to move from the Osoyoos Medical Centre (and lost that rent revenue) and spent $100,000 renovating the medical centre to accommodate a fourth doctor.

Finally, Dr. Jayden McIntyre has announced he will be joining the Osoyoos Medical Clinic as that fourth doctor, starting this July.

We at the Osoyoos Medical Centre have met with more than 10 doctors over the past five years.

No Nurse Practitioners have responded to our widely distributed advertisements. All would have been excellent physicians, but they choose other communities equally attractive and deserving.

Now that we are expanding to four physicians at the Osoyoos Medical Centre, it is up to the Town, its citizens, and businesses to help us retain Dr. McIntyre.

Some citizens are asking about a walk-in clinic for Osoyoos. The nearest walk-in clinic is currently located in Penticton, where there are several.

Unfortunately, none of the current six physicians working in Osoyoos have any more time in their 60-hour work week to devote to a walk-in clinic.

As I have pointed out, getting more physicians to come to Osoyoos has already proven incredibly difficult.

Also, three of the current physicians in town work nights and weekends at the South Okanagan General Hospital’s Emergency Room in Oliver.

Most family physicians also think that walk-in clinics do not provide good longitudinal care and skim off the quick, easy bladder infection or sore throat that is better and more appropriately treated by the family doctor.

Both medical offices in Osoyoos keep appointments open for same day treatment or problems that can’t wait.

I think it is very important that everybody have a family doctor who cares about them, monitors any chronic illness they might have, such as diabetes or hypertension, and will go to bat for them when they are sick, rather than see whomever is available at a walk-in clinic.

The arrival of Dr. McIntyre should solve that problem.

The ER doctors also understand, and they are all family doctors during the day, that some problems can’t wait until the next morning and will see less emergent problems if you are prepared to wait.

Dr. Robert Calder

Osoyoos, B.C.