File Photo (Image Credit: CFJC Today)

By James Peters

Rural Hospitals

IH lays out blueprint for return to full service at health centres in rural communities

Feb 18, 2022 | 4:59 PM

KAMLOOPS — After a month of reduced services at several smaller, rural hospitals throughout the region, Interior Health has announced the phased return of services.

This includes restarting inpatient services, expanding laboratory availability and resuming non-urgent surgeries.

IH made the following announcements Friday afternoon (Feb. 18):

• Two new registered nurses have been recruited to Lillooet and inpatient services will reopen on Mar. 14;
• One new registered nurse has been recruited to Clearwater and inpatient services to reopen on Feb. 23;
• Nurse provided primary care services at the Barriere and District Health Centre will return to normal on Feb. 23;
• Outpatient lab services in Barriere will return to five days per week, Monday to Friday, 8:30 a.m. to 4 p.m.;
• Scheduling non-urgent elective surgical procedures will resume on Feb. 23, and phase back to full services across Interior Health over a two week period;
• Varying by community, select outpatient services, adult day programs and non-urgent home health services will resume. Impacted clients will be contacted directly.

In addition, IH announced overnight services at the Ashcroft Community Health Centre will remain reduced “to stabilize daytime services” in the community.

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The service scaledown had been in effect since Jan. 18 in order to adjust for the wave of Omicron variant COVID-19 cases. The province has reported steadily declining hospitalization from COVID-19 for more than a week.

“While staffing is not stable enough to safely restore all services next week, we are pleased to take initial steps and resume non-urgent elective surgeries for people throughout Interior Health,” said IH President and CEO Susan Brown. “We will be rescheduling postponed procedures to catch up with the backlog as quickly as possible.”