Royal Inland Hospital in Kamloops is down to a single oncologist and new patients will be referred for consultations in Kelowna, officials confirmed Friday.
The move comes after one of two oncologists in the city went on maternity leave, leaving just Dr. Brad Proctor.
The unit of the B.C. Cancer Agency is supposed to have three medical oncologists, but efforts to recruit have not been successful.
“It’s been a hard-to-recruit location,” said John Larmet, regional director of the Cindy Ahluwalia Hawkins Centre for the Southern Interior.
To cope with the shortage, Larmet said newly diagnosed patients will go to Kelowna for an initial consultation, along with follow-ups this summer. The agency is scrambling to install a high-quality video link that will eventually allow subsequent consultations to be done from Kamloops to one of about 10 oncologists at the Kelowna cancer centre.
That system is used in the Cariboo and Kootenays, where there are no oncologists available in person.
Larmet said patients will continue to travel to Kelowna to receive radiation treatment for cancer, but will be able to undergo chemotherapy at RIH as usual.
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