Listen to the broadcast version of this story, which aired on Kootenay Morning on June 17, 2026:
By Jaime Frederick, Local Journalism Initiative
With an estimated 4,000 people currently without a family doctor in the Kootenay Boundary region, the state of health care in the area is always a contentious topic. But a renewed four-year physician main agreement (PMA) between the BC Government and Doctors of BC, ratified by doctors in the province earlier this month, provides fresh optimism that patient care will be strengthened as more supports are added for doctors in rural and remote communities.
Dr. Adam Thompson, a family physician based in Courtenay, BC, and president of the Doctors of BC, says one key provision of the agreement is increased funding of $50 million annually for a committee focused on rural issues and governed jointly by the Doctors of BC and the Ministry of Health. The committee is focused solely on rural healthcare and Thompson says the funding increase is the largest uplift it has ever received.
“[The committee] is there to work basically on rural healthcare and enhance rural healthcare through various programs that it runs,” says Thompson. “And the intent is that [the funding is] going to be there for them to work on stabilizing and enhancing physician services in rural and remote areas.”
Thompson adds that there is an additional $4.7 million in one-time funding allocated for rural priorities over the four-year agreement, with money for existing rural practice support programs and even help with doctors’ business costs, including digital health innovations and electronic medical records.
“So it includes funding for the existing programs and there are going to be additional supports for physicians who are new to rural practice, and as well supporting some of the hybrid and virtual care services,” he says. “As well as there’s funding for business costs.”
Support for KB Access Clinic
How the investments outlined in the agreement translate into better patient care for someone on a waitlist for a family doctor in New Denver or Castlegar may seem a little opaque. But Dr. Shelina Musaji is optimistic. Musaji is a physician in Kaslo and medical director of the Kootenay Boundary, or “KB,” Access Clinic, which provides primary care to unattached patients, or those who do not currently have a family doctor of their own.
She says that the clinic relies primarily on a full-time nurse practitioner and a number of local family physicians, who all contribute to share the care for patients who do not have access to a primary care provider. Those who work in the clinic are paid through the existing longitudinal family physician payment model (LFP). She notes that the new agreement may also provide increased funding in that area, as well.
“It’s going to look at areas for rural practice, but in particular compensation for after-hours care, looking at patient complexity and funding for care,” she says. “And of course, at KB Access we probably do have a higher level of patient complexity in our patients who have not been able to be attached for a while. So, just in the fact that that model will continue, and that model will continue to expand, and there’ll be different priorities, that will directly influence KB Access. So if the funding continues and it’s a good funding model, then I think it will continue to attract physicians to provide care.”
Additional support for rural healthcare
Musaji is also a member of the Kootenay Boundary Division of Family Practice, a non-profit society of primary health care providers in the region. She believes the new agreement will be a good investment in rural and remote care in other ways as well.
“Given that our region has rural and semi-rural areas, I believe we’ll have improved care in our KB region, especially in our more rural communities,” she says. “I think it will directly help with recruitment and retention of physician providers. It should also help us with the amount of locum support we receive. And so based on that and trends we’ve already seen in the last year, I think it will directly impact our ability for patients to have better access to care, and I think also with improved attachment to care, of both a physician and nurse practitioner as well.”
Musaji goes on to say that the new agreement also offers many opportunities for shared care initiatives, or innovative projects where primary care providers work with specialists to actively improve the system. She notes that the agreement prioritizes areas such as maternity and reproductive care in psychiatry and pediatrics, as well as culturally safe care.
“Those are areas that we do have some needs in, especially in rural areas,” says Musaji. “And so, that direct priority setting by the ministry should just help to strengthen our Division shared care projects. You know, there’s also a focus in the PMA, this is something that is close to my heart since I do quite a bit of EDI work. They really want to advance Indigenous-specific anti-racism and strengthen the delivery of culturally safe care…. So, it’s really important to see this commitment in the PMA.”
Given these new priorities for doctors practicing in rural and remote communities, hopefully people in the area who have not yet been able to find a family doctor will, in the meantime, continue to get the care they need, with attachment to a primary health care provider as the ultimate goal.
For more information about the KB Access Clinic, visit kbaccess.ca.
