So desperate for doctors, Colwood contemplates running health clinic itself

Colwood, B.C. -

Construction of the Pure Medical Clinic in Colwood’s Royal Bay neighbourhood has been complete since last October.

It’s ready for patients. All it needs is one key thing: doctors.

“We need doctors to open,” said Mohamed Zeid, the manager of the adjoining Pure Pharmacy.

The fast-growing city is currently facing a massive doctor shortage, says Mayor Doug Kobayashi.

“The fact is that we have 22,000 people here and we do not have a family doctor. We have zero family doctors,” said Kobayashi on Tuesday.

Colwood city council is responding by stepping into the breach, trying to be innovative.

On Monday night, council voted to explore options for running the clinic itself – with nurses and doctors as city employees – with the goal of making it more attractive for doctors to work there, by potentially taking over tasks like administering payroll and human resource duties.

“They’re good at doctoring, so let them doctor – we're good at administering, so let us administer,” said Kobayashi.

In order to retain doctors over the long term, Kobayashi says the key could be giving them benefits – including pensions.

He says he has had a couple of good meetings with Health Minister Adrian Dix about the general proposal, but the specific pension part of it hasn’t been well received yet.

“(There's been) lots of pushback,” he said Tuesday.

Still, that isn’t stopping him from continuing to pursue the idea.

“It's worth exploring and were going to continue to explore it.”

The Ministry of Health told CTV News in a statement Tuesday that it remains engaged and available to work with Colwood on options for improving primary care in the city.

As for when the medical clinic in Royal Bay will open, there’s no timeline. But the city hopes doctors will be enticed to set up shop there in the coming weeks.