Sun Peaks Health Centre (image credit - CFJC Today)

By Michael Reeve

SUN PEAKS HEALTH CARE

Sun Peaks hits reset button on community health care

Jul 31, 2025 | 5:19 PM

KAMLOOPS — The Supporting Team Excellence with Patients Society (STEPS) will no longer be operating the Sun Peaks Community Health Centre as of this October as the society and resort municipality have decided to go their separate ways.

STEPS began operating the health centre back in 2023, and the Sun Peaks Mountain Resort Municipality (SPMRM) is now searching for a new long-term solution for the clinic space.

Over the past year, the Sun Peaks Health Centre, like many healthcare settings, has struggled with recruitment and retention, forcing STEPS to lower hours of service to three days per week.

“We’ve seen the clinic to less operating hours and fewer services,” said Sun Peaks Mayor Rob O’Toole. “Over a period of time, in communication with them, we just came to a decision that it was in the best interest of the long-term healthcare success in our community — and for STEPS as well so they can focus their energies elsewhere — that we not renew the lease and take things in a new direction.”

Art of Gardening

The Art of Christmas: Seasonal hand-tied bouquet

22h ago

1000 Ways To Heal

1000 Ways to Heal: We Are The Land, We Are The Future

Dec 08, 2025

Looped In

LOOPED IN WITH NIKKI OMEN: December 8, 2025

Dec 08, 2025

The agreement is set to expire on October 10, and STEPS told CFJC News the organization will do everything possible to ensure a smooth transition.

“Working with the municipality, we were able to get this longer transition period and we’re working diligently to make this transition as smooth as possible and to do whatever we can to support the municipality with their decision on this,” STEPS Board President Colin O’Leary added.

“It was important for us that we not only see continued health care but that we see limited anxiety and stress to the staff working here,” said O’Toole. “Yes, their final day of providing medical services will be October 10 and then there is about a 10-day period for which they will be moving out. We are already actively working through what our options are to see continued health care.”

For Sun Peaks, the municipality is looking toward a new full-time, long-term solution to bring longitudinal care to the residents of the resort community, using the backdrop of the resort as a strong selling point for recruitment.

“You can have that kind of quiet rural lifestyle, no traffic lights, adventure playground in your backyard,” added O’Toole. “If those kind of things are valuable to people, I think this is going to make our lives a little bit easier as we look to try to recruit folks. We are looking at a specific type of person who wants to live a certain type of lifestyle and then also carve out a career for themselves.”

The goal is to have something set up for October 22, to ensure there are no gaps in service, but O’Toole admits a lot of moving parts exist between now and then.

“Our goal is to get back to a five-days-per-week family practice, urgent care walkup for those members of that family practice,” said O’Toole. “As far as emergent care goes, if something like that would be able to be done down the road, that would be great but it’s not necessarily a focus in the short term.”