B.C. Premier David Eby had a busy morning in Vernon Friday, Aug.
23, when he was in town to make two stops, first to cut the ribbon on a new at Okanagan College, and then to the Vernon Health Unit for a roundtable discussion with Interior Health leadership, where he announced Vernon will be getting a (UPCC). But before all of that running around, he sat down with The Morning Star to answer some questions on issues that affect Vernon, the Okanagan and the province as a whole. Here's what he had to say.
Eby's visit to Vernon followed the closures last year of the city's two remaining walk-in clinics, leaving a dearth of primary care options in the community. His announcement of a second urgent and primary care centre coming to the city next fall aimed to address those concerns, but the question remained whether the new centre would be enough to counterbalance the closures of those clinics. Eby said he thinks the new UPCC will in fact "bring us back to an excess of the level of service that people saw in the community," factoring in the opening of a earlier this year.
The premier said there was "considerable effort" by government through the health authorities to keep the walk-in clinics open. He said he doesn't know why those clinics ultimately decided to "pull the plug" and was disappointed, because keeping them open "would have been the preferred route for us," as it would have provided time to put larger systemic fixes such as a primary care centre in place. But Eby said the.