South Okanagan General Hospital (File photo)

By Vanessa Broadbent

Osoyoos Times

Osoyoos is pitching in to help support locum housing for South Okanagan General Hospital (SOGH) doctors.

At their April 15 meeting, Osoyoos town council voted to provide $3,000 for a locum housing lease for a one-year period.

In a letter to council, Interior Health said it’s been working with local physicians to address primary care needs in Oliver and Osoyoos, including staffing at the SOGH emergency department.

“To fill gaps in service, we rely on locums to cover vacation time in clinics and for emergency vacancies. However, securing housing for locums wanting to travel to practice in our communities has been and continues to be a real challenge.”

Mayors and councillors have asked Interior Health how their towns can help, the organization said. As a result, it’s formally requesting Oliver and Osoyoos councils help secure physician housing.

“With a dedicated residence close to SOGH, we could ensure easily accessible and comfortable housing for out-of-town physicians travelling to work in our communities,” Interior Health stated.

• Read more: Doctors will be on-call overnight at SOGH emergency

Staff from the Town of Oliver are eyeing a property three blocks away from SOGH, available for lease at $900/month, Town of Osoyoos CAO Barry Romanko told council.

The funds will come from the community development portion of the town’s economic development budget, he said.

Although locum doctors may work in Osoyoos as well, mayor Sue McKortoff said the house was chosen because of its proximity to SOGH.

“What we’re hoping is that a locum who comes to town would chose to work in the emerg department. Not all doctors do but this would make it much easier for any doctor who happened to be here doing a locum to work in emergency because they’re close,” she said.

Coun. Brian Harvey asked if doctors living in the house would be required to pay any fees.

“I always understood this was make housing available, as opposed to free housing,” he said.

At this point, the town is only making sure the funding is in place to start the project, Romanko said. If doctors are charged a nightly or monthly rate to live in the house can be decided at a future date.