Walk-in clinic 'massive win'

A planned new walk-in clinic in Penticton’s south end has been granted tax exemption and waived building permit fees by local council.

At Tuesday’s meeting, council voted unanimously for those supports for the SOS Health Care Society, a non-profit seeking to relocate an existing walk-in clinic into a much larger space on Skaha Lake Road, and fill it with more doctors to meet a growing need.

Director of development services Blake Laven said staff fully support the move.

“We are seeing a decline in what we traditionally had as walk-in clinics where we didn't need an appointment, didn't need the family doctor,” Laven said.

“We are seeing these really decline in numbers around the province.”

Laven said there is a shortage of doctors overall, and also a shortage of doctors who want to run and operate a clinic like a business, as well as more than 3,600 Pentictonites on waiting lists to be assigned a family doctor.

Penticton currently has two few walk-in clinics and an Interior Health-operated Urgent Primary Care Centre on Martin Street that opened in 2021, the latter of which only serves as a walk-in for the public after 5 p.m.

The Apple Plaza Community Walk-in Clinic is the one proposed to move to the larger space under the stewardship of SOS Health Care Society.

More doctors and other healthcare staff will be added.

“The healthcare society actually represents a very unique model, and you don't see this in a lot of other communities, where you have a not for profit that owns and operates the clinics, and then the doctors that provide the healthcare pay an administrative fee, and they don't have to run it as a business,” Laven said.

“This model is actually seen as a really strong recruitment tool … a very unique model that other communities are looking at.”

SOS Health Care Society has asked for a building permit fee waiver at a loss to the city of $25K, expedition of approvals, reviews and inspections, and a permissive tax exemption of about $18K per year for the society.

The $25K building permit fee waiver will come from surplus in 2025.

Council discussed the matter briefly, with Mayor Julius Bloomfield noting that the $18K permissive tax exemption is offered on a yearly basis, so if council ever decides they are not happy with how it is operating, that could be revoked.

Coun. Ryan Graham called it a “massive win” for the community, and something “new and bold.”

Council then passed the motion unanimously.