Royal Inland Hospital

By Michael Reeve

OBSTETRICS CLINIC

‘We need this care in our community’: Kamloops doctors express relief at obstetrical clinic staying open

Jun 9, 2023 | 4:26 PM

KAMLOOPS — Relief for expecting parents throughout the Kamloops region, as the Thompson Region Family Obstetrics (TRFO) clinic will now start accepting patients again on Monday (June 12).

Dr. Grant Del Begio with the Division of Family Practice was ecstatic everyone’s hard work has paid off.

“I did obstetrics for more than 30 years and I just know how important it is to get people (seen) safely and give them the confidence that they can get through this part of family life safely — so huge,” explained Del Begio.

Co-principal of TRFO Dr. Shaun Davis confirmed that, while the clinic is only accepting mothers with due dates up to the end of the year, there is confidence it will be open longer than that.

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“We have locums committed to get us through to [the end of December]. Obviously, we hope by that point that those locums or other people will have helped us extend the schedule forward. We typically build our schedule six months out, so that’s just as far as we have got. I don’t want to be pessimistic and say, ‘Only December,’ it’s just that’s all we can promise,” said Davis.

“There is a little bit of guarded optimism, but ultimately we need this care in our community of this size,” added Del Begio. “And it’s going to happen, I’m quite confident of that. In the long run, they will work something out not just for this year but ongoing to provide the needed care.”

Earlier this week, Interior Health announced the opening of a new midwifery clinic at Royal Inland Hospital, Davis believes the two clinics will work well together to provide needed care to mothers.

“That is sort of the interim solution to help offload all of these patients who haven’t been seen. Definitely, a midwifery driven model and I think it’s going to be excellent. Because even if we open, as you can imagine it’s going to take a while for us to onboard all of the patients that are out there in the community without providers currently,” said Davis.

The near-closure of the obstetrics clinic is yet another sign of struggles in the already hurting health-care sector in British Columbia. Despite that, Dr. Del Begio sees positives for health care in the province.

“Where we learn to provide care, with different parties working together as far as that goes. And maybe it does mean working out some new systems, some new contracts, all these sort of things. But I’m optimistic for the future that we can build on this and provide continuous care going forward,” said Del Begio.