WINNIPEG – A new hospital in Selkirk could draw doctors to the chronically understaffed Interlake-Eastern Health Region, according to officials.
The $111 million Selkirk Regional Health Centre will accept its first patients on Sunday.
The brand new facility and equipment will hopefully encourage more doctors to set-up a primary practice in Selkirk while occasionally travelling to rural areas to provide treatment, said Interlake-Easter Health Authority CEO Ron Van Denakker.
“We do believe that this will be very helpful in our journey to making sure that we deal with our physician shortages,” he said.
The region needs 25 – 35 more doctors to be fully staffed.
“The 25 would be the number that we need to keep our emergency rooms open across all of the ERs all of the time, 35 would provide us with that plus our ability to deal with many of our primary health care needs,” said Van Denakker.
The health authority is also looking at establishing a residency program that would allow the region to produce their own family practice doctors, said Van Denakker.
The new hospital is also expecting to treat patients from Winnipeg.
“It certainly will take off some of the pressure of people that are seeking service in Winnipeg,” said Van Denakker.
That pressure will likely increase when Concordia Hospital’s emergency department closes and the Seven Oaks Hospital’s emergency department is converted to an urgent care centre.
Those changes are expected to happen next year.
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