Image Credit: CFJC Today / Kent Simmonds

By Dylana Kneeshaw

MATERNITY CARE IN KAMLOOPS

First Steps Early Pregnancy Triage clinic facing funding uncertainty when grant money runs out

Dec 12, 2023 | 5:30 PM

KAMLOOPS — A Kamloops-based prenatal clinic that recently opened in September is hoping to keep its doors open, but its future is uncertain.

Joanna Norman is the head of midwifery at Royal Inland Hospital, and the clinic lead for First Steps Early Pregnancy Triage Clinic, and says the clinic has made an immediate impact to Kamloops prenatal care.

“In the first 12 weeks that we’ve been open since September we’ve seen over 200 new pregnancies,” Norman told CFJC Today Tuesday.

In her experience, Norman says a triage clinic is crucial to give early pregnancy care to people who don’t have a family doctor or nurse practitioner — which could be 800-900 people annually.

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“Those people, when they are first pregnant, end up in the emergency room or at the Urgent Care Clinic, or sometimes they’re just delaying even coming into care,” she explains. “That’s a real problem because they’re missing some of those early care pieces that are so essential for a healthy pregnancy and healthy outcomes.”

Part of what the triage clinic does also includes getting later stage pregnancies access to the Thompson Region Family Obstetrics (TRFO) clinic at the hospital.

“To go to TRFO you need a referral, and so those referrals have to come from either a family doctor, a nurse practitioner, or a midwife, and that’s the piece that has been the gap.”

First Steps has been operating on money from a six-month grant. That initial funding came from the Foundation for Advancing Family Medicine, and Norman says the Division of Family Practice has also been supporting as much as it can with spreading awareness and providing a project manager.

When asked what sort of funding they’d need for another six months, Norman expects it’ll be more than $200,000.

“That grant money ends in March and we’re hoping that Interior Health is going to pick up the funding to make the program sustainable in the long run.”

The clinic isn’t expecting an answer from the health authority until early 2024, but Norman says IH is aware of the triage project, and has been watching it with a lot of interest. The team is optimistic something will be figured out.

“Of course there’s no money on the table yet, there’s no promises yet,” reiterates Norman. “But we have submitted the proposal in terms of the budget that would be needed to support the clinic ongoing and we’re hopeful.”

If the money isn’t there, First Steps will have to close. But in the meantime, the team will keep accepting new patients, and wait to see what comes of their proposal.

As for what the community can do to help, Norman says positive support is always helpful.

“Give some feedback about the impact that this program has had on the lives of your family, or for pregnant people who have been accessing the care — the impact it’s had on them,” she says. “Let Interior Health know.”