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CCRHD considers health authority change

The Cariboo Chilcotin Regional Hospital District Board is pursuing the possibility of falling under one health authority.

After mulling it over for a couple of months the Cariboo Chilcotin Regional Hospital District Board is pursuing the possibility of falling under one health authority.

Presently communities within the CCRHD come under the auspices of either Interior Health or Northern Health, depending on where they are located.

At its April 20 meeting directors passed a motion unanimously to explore the option of coming solely under Northern Health.

While CCRHD chair John Massier wasn’t at the meeting, because he was attending a health roundtable in Kamloops, he said the board’s plan is to engage in discussions with both health authorities about possibly moving into one health authority.

“The idea comes up mostly from the directors in the Interior Health Authority,” Massier says.

Some of the main issues are around recruitment and retention of medical professionals, and the thought that it might be simpler to deal with one health authority instead of two.

There is a number of larger cities within Interior Health to compete against too, he explains.

So far there have not been any formal discussions with either health authority so the plan is to gather some data of service over the last decade and invite representatives from each authority to meet with the board.

“We don’t really know at this point if the provincial government or the health authorities would even entertain the idea, because those boundaries might be set. However, we still want to see if there is an ability to make this happen,” Massier says.



Monica Lamb-Yorski

About the Author: Monica Lamb-Yorski

A B.C. gal, I was born in Alert Bay, raised in Nelson, graduated from the University of Winnipeg, and wrote my first-ever article for the Prince Rupert Daily News.
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