The Sorrento & Area Community Health Centre has taken a very important step forward in its growth.
The program under which the health centre was initiated requires a community to fund the operating costs of the facility while Interior Health pays the salary and benefits of the practitioner and the necessary medical supplies.
To facilitate fundraising for the operating costs, the health centre had to create a separate society in order to obtain charitable status from the Canada Revenue Agency so it can issue tax deductible receipts to donors.
The new Sorrento & Area Community Health Centre Society has been established and has been granted charitable status under the Income Tax Act and is now able to provide tax deductible receipts for donations.
The health centre opened in November when Interior Health and the Sorrento & Area Community Association partnered to ensure health services became available following the inability to recruit a physician for the area.
As a result of the NP4BC program sponsored by the Ministry of Health, nurse practitioner Judy Deringer is able to perform many services including assessing patients, ordering prescriptions and diagnostic tests, diagnosing and treating chronic health conditions and referring patients to specialists.
Kathy McGill, a half-time medical assistant, begins work June 9 and volunteers will continue to provide reception services when she is not in the office.
The health centre has also obtained an MSP billing number which means it is able to use locum physicians to cover when Deringer is absent.
Donations are very important and can be dropped off at the centre located above Munro’s Sorrento Prescriptions, or by mail to the Sorrento & Area Community Health Centre Society, Box 193, Sorrento, V0E 2W0. Donations can also be made to the health centre’s account at the Sorrento Branch of SASCU. Receipts will be sent by email.
The health centre is open from 9 a.m. to noon Monday to Thursday. Appointments can be booked by calling 250 803-5251.