A walk-in medical clinic that has long been operating in Sahali is closing. Summit Medical Clinic at the corner of Notre Dame Drive and Summit Drive (sharing the strip mall with a pizza place, a sushi restaurant and a dentist’s office) will close on Dec. 15.

“Logistics played a part in it,” office manager Dan Perry told KTW. “There’s a new lease and one of our doctors isn’t well … Dr. De Kock wasn’t willing to go on a lease on his own.”

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Dr. Julie Anderson will be closing her practice, while Dr. Victor De Kock will be relocating his family practice to the medical building at 546 St Paul St. downtown. Dr. Orlando Passerin and Dr. Michael Wilson will be not remain at the clinic, which has operated for more than 25 years.

The pending closure means patients not tied to family doctors will have one walk-in option on the South Shore: the Kamloops Urgent care Clinic on McGill Road, behind Superstore. The new after-hours clinic at Royal Inland Hospital takes referrals from the hospital’s ER department.

Perry could not say how many patients are on file at the clinic.

“It’s a significant number,” he said.

A note posted on the website of Summit Medical Clinic speaks to the issue of a physician shortage in Kamloops.

“There are other times it looks like the future of family medicine is in jeopardy. The government has an after-hours clinic at Royal Inland Hospital. As usual, they will pay family doctors more than they can earn in private practice. B.C. remains less competitive for physicians, so now the squeeze is on. There are B.C.-born and raised doctors who won't come back because B.C. is being outbid by Ontario and Alberta. Recently, two longtime Kamloops doctors closed their offices. Is somebody replacing them? No. Does the government think it has solved the problem?”

Perry said the clinic closure is regrettable, but noted the “public health care system is in trouble.”

Young doctors tell him they likely won’t go into family practice due to significant debts. Hospital doctors get paid better due to the fact they are not required to pay for everything to run a clinic.

“The public isn’t aware of that, but to me it’s a pretty serious issue that has to be addressed,” Perry said.

He noted the issue will likely get worse before it gets better, due to the average age of physicians in Kamloops in the 55- to 58-year-old range.

“We’ll see how it shakes out, but from my perspective, it’s not a great solution,” he said.

Perry is one of fewer than 10 employees who will be looking for work as a result of the closure.

Those without a family doctor can call 811 to have their names placed on a list. The new multi-team NorKam Healthcare Centre on the North Shore has taken in a number of patients since it opened in the spring of 2017.