The Cariboo Chilcotin Regional Hospital District will explore hiring two people who can roll out the red carpet for new medical professionals hired to work in Williams Lake and 100 Mile House.
During a special meeting held Friday, Dec. 11, the board voted in favour of pursuing the idea.
CCRHD chair Bob Simpson said he along with vice-chair Al Richmond and Cariboo Regional District chief administrative officer John Maclean will meet with 100 Mile House and Williams Lake councils to discuss the possibility further.
“We don’t do any of the hard recruiting whatsoever,” Simpson told Black Press Media Friday. “We simply try to make the health authorities’ recruiting efforts as successful as possible.”
Simpson said the role of the hired person would be to make sure when health care professionals come into the communities they have the most successful and positive landing experience, are integrated into the community and then want to stay.
It is ‘really a red carpet and retention’ program for people that Interior Health and Northern Health are recruiting to fill vacancies, he added.
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Hiring someone for Williams Lake and 100 Mile House, could potentially model an already existing position in Quesnel where city council saw the landing and retention of health care professionals as a fundamental part of the city’s economic and social development and hired someone.
The city of Quesnel holds the contract and hires a person who goes and does the work, Simpson said.
During the special meeting, 100 Mile House Mayor Mitch Campsall voted against the proposal, saying his staff will not have any time to manage a contract for the position.
“We are so bogged down right now, we are unable to handle something like that,” Campsall said.
Simpson responded it has not been a lot of extra work for the economic development office in Quesnel.
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Area E director Angie Delainey said she was in favour of the hiring someone for Williams Lake and 100 Mile House.
She added that it is time sensitive because she is worried about burnout of medical professionals due to the COVID-19 pandemic.