The proposed clinic to provide healthcare especially to complex-needs patients in the city who have no family doctor got at least 10 per cent of its financial needs met in one event.
The Spirit of the North Healthcare Foundation's radiothon this past weekend raised more than $65,000 all earmarked for the upstart downtown clinic which is slated to open early in the new year, provided it can raise the $600,000 organizers estimate the operation will cost.
"It is something that I hope will have a profound effect on healthcare not just for local patients but if it works, it stands a great chance of being used as a model for the rest of B.C. and across Canada," said the foundation's chief executive officer Don Gowan.
The event was broadcast by The River/The Drive and was supported by The Citizen.
The clinic is the result of collaboration between a local coalition of doctors and other healthcare professionals called the Prince George Division of Family Practice (DFP), supported by Northern Health and the provincial Ministry of Health. Giving the estimated 5,000 complex-needs patients a family doctor and one-stop-shopping for their intensive medical issues is one part in the DFP's plan to get everyone in the city their own physician in the next few years.
"During the radiothon we heard from people the chief of the Nadleh First Nation, and from others, who came in with really meaningful donations because they see that reducing that group of patients unattached to a doctor is important to the whole region," said Gowan. "General healthcare is not available to everyone right across the region, that is why the community was so supportive of this initiative. It is literally able to accommodate grassroots patients who just can't seem to get in anywhere to see a family doctor."
The radiothon's proceeds should cover some of the needed equipment for the four main examination rooms the clinic would house, said Gowan.
He added that the DFP has asked the healthcare foundation for a major funding injection to get the facility up and running (ongoing costs are largely covered by provincial funding formulas). That request will be put before the foundation's board at their next meeting for their consideration.
