Cariboo Memorial Hospital's new Chief of Staff, Dr. Jacques Neuhoff, officially took on the role July 1, 2024.
He replaces Dr. Roland Engelbrecht who moved back to South Africa with his family. Dr. Englebrecht will continue doing some work for Williams Lake now and then, including with Cornerstone Clinic, Neuhoff confirmed.
Chief of Staff is a role overseeing the physicians who work at the hospital, Neuhoff explained.
“I’m part of the discussions in terms of new appointments, encouraging new physicians to come and locum with us,” he said, noting he is also a go-between to voice concerns of physicians to management and vice versa. He assists with program planning, staffing, recruitment and retention and deals with the day-to-day tasks in terms of management of the staff itself.
"I don’t deal with operations," he added.
Neuhoff and his wife Dr. Mariska Neuhoff arrived in Williams Lake in 2020.
He works about three days a week in the hospital as a GP anesthetist, works at Gateway and still has his family practice. He was part of long-term care services for a while, but is not doing that anymore.
Neuhoff said his experience living and working in Williams Lake has been positive.
“We have a really wonderful community of not only physicians but wider."
His family loves the outdoor activities and the smaller community because he and his wife are from a smaller community in South Africa, he said.
“We just fit in right away.”
He described how they landed in the winter and were soon cross-country skiing.
“Our two young kids are doing really well in the schools here and the support we have received through the physician and health care community is extraordinary. Everybody is like a family and that helps.”
When the Tribune interviewed Dr. Neuhoff on Friday, Sept. 13, he confirmed the hospital was in final negotiations with an orthopedic surgeon to join the hospital.
“If we are successful, we will also have an internal medicine physician joining the community at the end of this month and then we have two practice-ready physicians joining now within the next week or two.”
Practice-ready positions, he said, are for immigrants trained outside of the country who can work in Canada, which is the program he came to Williams Lake through.
When asked why some physicians have left Williams Lake in recent years, he replied there is no single reason.
“A lot of the colleagues that left since I got here were for a variety of reasons. A lot of them went back to South Africa because of family. That accounts for five of the physicians that left.”
Another physician moved to Kelowna for schooling for their children and the others were short-term International Medical Graduate physicians who had been in Canada for some time and their families had already settled in other areas. They had come to Williams Lake to complete training and then once it was done moved back to be with their families.
“There are not necessarily a lot of negative comments about Williams Lake and the hospital," he said.
As a recruiter, he tells potential hires that Williams Lake has a “very strong integrated physician community with a lot of support.” He’s been on the receiving end of it, he said, adding that support is extremely important for someone coming into a new environment.
“Our city has a lot to offer in terms of outdoor recreational activities. It’s not just the working environment that’s important but also the recreation because that’s what I feel makes people stay. I feel as a city and surrounding community we have so much to offer with our trails for mountain bikers, runners, and the ski hills close by in the winter time.”
Working at Cariboo Memorial Hospital also provides exposure to a wide experience of cases, with acuity quite high sometimes.
“We do have a wide variety of cases that come into the hospital and your skill set will definitely improve working in our hospital because you don’t have a big team to fall back on. You get that experience and that is priceless and is something that will make you a better physician or nurse if you are able to do those things.”
He said a visiting locum returns monthly because of that experience.
“When he is in Vancouver he doesn’t see a fraction of the type of patients he sees here and that experience will keep his skill set up there and make him a better doctor.”
Emergency department closures, which CMH has seen its fair share of this year, are not up to him.
“I don’t make those higher up decisions,” he explained.
Excited about the redevelopment at the hospital, he said it’s a good time to be Chief of Staff.
“I always focus on the positives. Yes, the negatives are there, they will always be there in life, but there are so many positive things happening within the hospital here, and just over the last past month.”
Prior to taking on the role, he had become chair of the Central Interior Rural Division of Family Practice and that got him interested in a leadership role.
While the learning has been steeper than expected, he said the challenges are obvious, with the major ones being staff shortages.
"We have a lot of people working behind the scenes and that’s been a learning experience for me. Before I got into this role, I was thinking ‘no one is doing anything,’ but when you step onto the other side of the curtain it’s unbelievable to see how many people are actually working on solutions and that they have faith in the site and the people.”
Working with the staff has been nothing but great on all levels during his four years at the hospital, he said.
“The hospital I feel, from kitchen staff, to janitorial to everyone - we all work together.”
Drawing on a recent example, he recalled when a school bus went off the road just north of Lac La Hache transporting students home from Gavin Lake in June 2024.
“We had a code orange and the immediate response from everyone was - I’d never seen something like that. Everyone showed up. We had doctors in my clinic all close up and we ran to the hospital. The nurses were all there, the kitchen staff prepared sandwiches and all the staff was ready.”
The response showed him how well everyone can work together and what they were capable of was “really heartwarming.”
People working at the hospital are doing more than what is asked of them and if the community can show its appreciation, that would be a big help, he said.
“They are continuing to do their best, despite the negative feedback they sometimes get when they are out in the community or on social media.”
Williams Lake is the size of community where everyone knows who is a nurse or who is a doctor and he said he hopes when people see them out in public they express gratitude toward them.
“It is sometimes tough with the negative feedback we get back," he said. "A thank you goes a long way.”