Health Minister Terry Lake, and MLA Coralee Oakes join with other government and Northern Health representatives to announce site for clinic in September – photo courtesy Northern Health

Quesnel, B.C. – Northern Health is aiming for an April start-up for its primary care clinic in Quesnel.

The new clinic was announced in September and will be located on Front Street, just up and across from G.R. Baker Hospital.

“We’re aiming for April 1 but that’s tentative at this point,” says Quesnel’s Health Service Administrator Debbie Strang. “We’re waiting until we get the drawings and then of course we’ll know more of the depth of the renovations required.”

Once the drawings are approved, she expects renovations on what was formerly Cariboo North MLA Coralee Oakes office will start later this month or in early December.

Strang boasts the clinic is a new way of practicing team-based care for patients.

“There will be physicians in the clinic, nurse practitioners, an inter-professional team that works with the folks in the clinic and contains mental health clinicians, home and community care and primary care nurses.”

And through a community wide recruiting effort, she says the city has more than made up for the pending loss of four physicians.

“We’ve had some great success in recruiting physicians, some great interest in this new clinic as a way to practice,” says Strang, “Between September 2015 and August 2016 we have confirmed seven new physicians coming into the community.”