Recent media attention has focused on health care in the South Okanagan.
As physicians of the South Okanagan General Hospital (SOGH), we would like to assure our local communities that we are unwavering in our continued commitment to strive for high quality, consistent, and reliable medical services within our hospital and communities.
The SOGH Medical Staff believes that the issues recently raised in the media are important to ensure quality patient care in the South Okanagan and should be addressed immediately.
Reducing the current number (23) of available acute care beds at SOGH will be detrimental to patient care.
Current nursing staff levels at SOGH are inadequate for effective and safe patient care, and negatively impacts our ability to retain nurses.
The challenging nature of emergency medicine, and specifically several characteristics of our emergency department, have made staffing the emergency department 24/7 extremely difficult, especially while trying to address other increasing needs in our community.
For years, the physicians of Oliver and Osoyoos have been striving unsuccessfully behind the scenes to fill ever enlarging gaps in our local health care.
We are continuing our efforts to secure sustainable, long-term solutions, but recognize that we cannot achieve this goal on our own.
As your physicians, we value and appreciate your support and hope we can count on you during the next couple of weeks as we ask Interior Health to work with us and make a commitment to high quality, consistent, and reliable medical services in our communities.
Dr. Jan Venter, SOGH physicians
