Urgent and Primary Care Clinic announced for Williams Lake

Williams Lake and area residents can look forward to more team-based healthcare with a new urgent and primary care centre.

The clinic, located at 47 Cameron Street, will provide care for people who don’t need the emergency room for things like minor cuts or burns, headaches or earaches, sprains, nausea, and others.

While the clinic won’t be open 24/7, Minister of Health, Adrian Dix says the centre will provide care at important times and days beginning between February or March of 2025.

“It’s seven days a week, including holidays which is really helpful, and it’ll be open 9:30am to 8:30pm everyday.” says Dix.

“The value of that, especially from 5:00pm to 8:30pm when offices frequently aren’t open at that time, and obviously Saturday and Sunday will be valuable as well.”

Dix says when fully staffed, there will be around 18 full-time equivalent healthcare providers, including family physicians, nurse practitioners, nurses, social workers, physiotherapists, Indigenous patient navigators and administrative staff.

As to how staff will be brought in, he says there are roughly 500 to 600 staff working in urgent and primary care, and 2000 hired incremental in primary care networks across the province.

This has allowed for consistent urgent and primary care centre staffing.

The $3.4 million capital cost at the site is funded jointly between the province and the Cariboo Chilcotin Regional Hospital District, with an operating budget of $3.7 million.