By Greg Fry

Kamloops’ O’Fee removed as IHA board chair

Sep 22, 2017 | 11:33 AM

KAMLOOPS — Kamloops’ John O’Fee is out as board chair for Interior Health.

Today the provincial goverment announced its appointed Dr. Doug Cochrane, a professor emeritus at UBC,  to replace O’Fee. Dr. Selena Lawrie and Cindy Stewart have been added as board members. Lawrie is from Kamloops.

“These are things that happen in politics,” O’Fee told CFJC Today. “When a new party comes to power they make changes in some of the boards. I don’t see any acrimony in that. That’s what happened when the Liberals came to power.”

O’Fee was appointed to the board in July 2016 and took over the role of board chair in January 2017.

Moving forward, he said he plans to continue his full-time work as a teacher of business law and real estate law at Thompson Rivers University.

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O’Fee said the highlight during his brief tenure was the announcement of the $417 million Royal Inland Hospital expansion.

Kamloops-North Thompson Liberal MLA and former Kamloops mayor Peter Milobar said he was disappointed with the news.

“Disappointing from a local perspective. We’ve worked long and hard over the years to finally have a chair from Kamloops. Making sure we try to dampen that worry about Kelowna influence,” he said. 

“But probably not totally unexpected or surprising given this typically happens with transitions of government. So now it’s up to the hospital board and ourselves to make sure we continue to advocate for Kamloops.”