File Photo (Image Credit: CFJC Today)

By James Peters

Two and Out

PETERS: What could make someone want to leave Kamloops? Inadequate health care

Oct 24, 2025 | 12:30 PM

HAVING LIVE IN KAMLOOPS for almost 20 years, it’s fair to say my wife and I are committed to this community — in spite of all its flaws.

There are only a few factors that could ever compel us to leave.

The crime we’re seeing in this city is not one of them. We’re not about to move to a smaller community and, in every Canadian city Kamloops’ size or larger, crime is present.

The wildfire danger in this area might give us pause but, when you think of it, there’s scarcely a place you can go to escape the impacts of climate change.

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The cost of living is high here but that’s a price we pay to live in a place so beautiful and so close to family.

None of those factors are deal-breakers.

Speaking of family, our kids are getting to the age when, in the next few years, they may determine they wish to pursue careers or education somewhere else. That would certainly give us something to consider.

Perhaps the factor that would most reasonably prompt our family to leave is access to health care.

That is a deal-breaker — and the more our healthcare offerings crumble in Kamloops, the closer it gets to breaking the deal.

The most basic level is emergency care. In Kamloops, emergency care is compromised by the cavalcade of patients who should have primary physicians tending to their relatively non-urgent ailments.

Primary care is the next level up. Tens of thousands in this region are not attached to primary care physicians or nurse practitioners. I’m on my fourth GP in the past four years. The last two have practiced out of a clinic in Kelowna.

Then we get to specialist care and we can look at the OB-GYNs as an example of what’s happening there.

Overworked, burnt out and marooned by Interior Health, after years of fruitless negotiations, they were left with the nuclear option — completely pulling the plug from in-hospital care.

They’re the latest in a line of medical professionals saying the situation in Kamloops is inadequate — and if it’s inadequate for physicians, it’s inadequate for patients.

If you’re like me, you have grown to love this community and there are very few factors that would cause you to leave. Inadequate health care is one.

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Editor’s Note: This opinion piece reflects the views of its author, and does not necessarily represent the views of CFJC Today or Pattison Media.