The first E&N passenger train comes to Lake Cowichan (conclusion)
LIVING, Page 9
Duncan Christian School doubles up as it names Athletes of the Year
SPORTS, Page 17
WEDNESDAY
SINGIN’ IN THE RAIN: REVIEW /10
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www.cowichanvalleycitizen.com
Wednesday, June 19, 2013
MINOR INJURIES IN CRASH THAT SNARLS TRAFFIC Emergency personnel had to extract a male from a silver Mazda following a collision at the intersection of the Trans Canada Highway and Bench Road early last Saturday afternoon. Police reported that a southbound vehicle turned in front of a northbound vehicle, and was struck as it cut across traffic. The southbound vehicle spun around and struck another vehicle waiting for the light at Bench Road. Several minor injuries resulted in the two main vehicles. See our coverage of two crashes in the Shawnigan Lake RCMP detachment area on page 4. [KEVIN ROTHBAUER/CITIZEN]
Care team stop-gap solution to Lake doctor crisis SARAH SIMPSON CITIZEN
Medical help is on the horizon for folks in the Town of Lake Cowichan, but it’s not the new physician so many have been hoping and waiting for. Concern bubbled up late last year, after Dr. Peter Postuk announced he was moving his family practice to Duncan in the autumn of 2013. Subsequently, Dr. Philip Kerswell announced he is following Postuk to Duncan,
Peter Baljet
and the physician the community believed was in line to take over for Postuk changed his mind. This will leave Lake Cowichan without a doctor. Though a town hall meeting addressed the difficulty of luring family doctors to rural areas and led to the forming of a Choose Cowichan Lake committee, a group still active in trying to encourage doctors to take a chance on life at the lake, stakeholders are now tackling the issue
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from another angle — by developing a model for an “integrated multidisciplinary primary and community care team.” That’s health-speak for a new way of delivering health care that’s being rolled out in many communities across the country, according to Valerie Nicol, the executive director of the Cowichan Valley Division of Family Practice. “The idea of an integrated team is so that patients don’t have to
run around to a bunch of different places to get their needs met,” Nicol said. It could mean that any number of services — from physiotherapy to a walk-in clinic to dieticians, social workers, specialists and more — could be lined up and work in concert to take care of the needs of Lakers. “The goal is to create this integrated team in Lake Cowichan to support the people there in their time of need when there’s a dwin-
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dling supply of doctors,” Nicol said. To be clear, she stressed, it’s not a solution to the doctor shortage. “It’s meant to provide people with some continuity of care while that doctor situation is being sorted out. We don’t want people to think they are getting this instead of doctors,” she said. What services will be available is not yet known, Nicol said. That’s See Public sessions • page 4
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