A Google Street View photo from 2015 captured Beach Avenue Medical Clinic before it shuttered in 2019.
Image Credit: SUBMITTED/Google
June 03, 2023 - 7:00 AM
There were no doctors in Peachland at the start of the decade but now, suddenly, there are three.
Beach Avenue Medical Clinic shuttered in 2019 because nobody was willing to replace Dr. John Brinkerhoff after he retired. That left the town of 5,000 without a doctor’s office.
A quaint, picturesque community like Peachland seems to have many competitive advantages for recruiting doctors, but for four years there was nowhere for them to practice.
Doctors generally want to focus on their practice rather than running a clinic, according to Sarah Kendrick, who owns Beachside Health Ltd. where the three new doctors can be found.
“There were other doctors practicing here five years ago but they didn’t want to run a business so they left,” she said.
Doctors can now avoid the business side of healthcare in Peachland thanks to Kendrick and her husband, who manage the operations of the clinic. The couple’s backgrounds were in business, not healthcare, but they saw an opportunity to fulfill a need in a little town, she said. Their clinic opened in January 2023 and it operates out of the same unit where Beach Avenue Medical was.
The first two physicians to provide care in Peachland again were Dr. Yves Clouâtre, a family practitioner, and Dr. Willem Zan Den Berg who’s a general practitioner. The newest recruit is Dr. Trevor Roy, a family practitioner who specializes in sports medicine.
Kendrick said the locals have been showing their appreciation for the re-opened clinic.
“People poke their head in just to say their excited hello, people are really, really happy.”
Beachside Health is also hiring two nurses who will be starting in the summertime. Once fully staffed, "we should be able to serve all the needs of our community relating to primary care," she said.
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