The Spirit of the North Healthcare Foundation has come forward with a $375,000 cure for patients who have been unable to find a family doctor to meet their medical needs.
The non-profit society has raised the money to combine with combine with the Prince George Division of Family Practice to establish a downtown care clinic that will streamline the services of doctors, nurse practitioners and other health services in a one-stop medical centre.
"We've heard there's as many as 15,000 people that don't have a family doctor in our community and that's when our board of directors looked at this and just said it was a worthy cause that certainly fits in with our goal of enhancing health care for people in the north," said Don Gowan, chief executive officer of the Spirit of the North Healthcare Foundation.
"It's a significant amount, certainly less than was asked for, but we felt we needed to be a major partner to make sure this thing happened because it was at risk of not going forward if we were not involved."
Also partnering to support the clinic will be Northern Health, which will be assisting with the provision of clinical resources. A radio-thon raised $65,000.
The clinic, which is expected to be open in the spring of 2012, will be housed in the Commonwealth Health Centre.
For more, see Thursday's Citizen.
