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Kamloops
Hot weather ahead for the Thompson-Okanagan
THOMPSON-OKANAGAN – Dig out your sunscreen and your flip-flops because B.C.’s Interior is in for some unseasonably hot weather over the coming week. Although the average temperature for the region is in the low 20s from Kamloops all the way south to Penticton, residents can look forward to highs of 29 C with only occasional...
Emergency service in Ashcroft only available on weekends
ASHCROFT - The emergency room in the Village of Ashcroft will only be open on weekends as the Interior Health Authority continues its employment search for doctors. The services sustained a series of cuts after the village’s second doctor quit, leaving it to reduced emergency hours throughout the week. Now the service is only available from...
Ashcroft doctor shortage impacting other communities
ASHCROFT - A doctor shortage in Ashcroft is diminishing emergency room hours, leaving patients no choice but to either call 9-1-1 or travel over an hour to Kamloops or Merritt in the event of an emergency. Administrators at Interior Health Authority cut hours this week after one of the two doctors in town quit last...
Drunken U-turn leads to crash, injury
CHASE - One woman is in hospital and another is in police custody after a single vehicle crash on Shuswap Road East near Pritchard around 4 a.m., Monday, June 1. Chase RCMP Cpl. Mark Skotnicki says officers noticed two women in their early-20s standing on the road next to a pickup truck in the ditch....
Cool, wet weather to hit Kamloops
NEAR-RECORD HEAT EXPECTED BY WEEKEND KAMLOOPS - The warm weather we’ve been having is about to step aside to make room for cooler temperatures and rain, lots of rain, over the next few days. Environment Canada has issued a special weather statement for all of the Okanagan Valley as well as the Shuswap, Nicola and...
High-speed action coming to Kamloops this weekend
KAMLOOPS - If you love motocross, this is the weekend you have been waiting for. The motocross nationals will be bringing some of the top riders from across the world to Kamloops this weekend. The 2015 Rockstar Energy Drink Motocross National series is kicking off at Whispering Pines in Kamloops this year, before heading to...
Case against former immigration society director fails
KAMLOOPS - A judge has dropped a series of claims, including defamation and breach of confidentiality allegations against a former Kamloops Immigrant Services executive director who claimed the board chair harrassed staff in a toxic workplace after she and five other employees were dismissed. In her May 28 decision, Supreme Court Justice Martha Devlin said Wanda...
High retail vacancy rate ‘a one-off for Kamloops’
KAMLOOPS - Commercial space vacancy in Kamloops is the highest it has been in the last three years but market analysts at a local real estate firm suggest the percentage is based solely on the thousands of square footage left empty by the now-defunct Target Canada in Sahali Mall. Prior to the big box departure,...
More B.C. wildfire personnel headed to Alberta
KAMLOOPS - Forty-one B.C. wildfire personnel, including two unit crews and an agency representative, will join the 88 others deployed earlier this week to fight wildfires in Alberta. Crews will be stationed in Edmonton, but could be deployed elsewhere throughout that province based on fire activity and need. Along with 129 personnel, B.C. sent two...
VIDEO: Spring car cruise attracts automotive fans from across B.C.
OKANAGAN – An annual car cruise which started a few years ago as a way for friends and car enthusiasts to show off their rides, has grown to include hundreds of 'tuners' from across the province. Tyson Noel organized the first Kelowna Spring Cruise and has seen it go from fewer than 50 cars to...
Kamloops property tax notices in the mail
KAMLOOPS – It's that time of year again, property tax notices began arriving in the mail this week. Council agreed to a 1.22 per cent tax increase earlier this year and as a result the average tax payer should expect to pay roughly $34 more dollars this season than last year. Property taxes, due Thursday, July...
Nine salmonella victims in B.C. Interior contracted from live chicks
THOMPSON-OKANAGAN - The Interior Health Authority is bearing the brunt of a B.C. salmonellosis outbreak connected to live poultry distributed from a hatchery in Alberta. The health authority has dealt with nine of 13 confirmed cases within the province and one of the two that required hospitalization, according to Althea Hayden, a public health physician....
Laundry privatization decision expected this summer
THOMPSON-OKANAGAN - Hospital Employee Union members who filled the Interior Health Authority board meeting yesterday to show their concern about laundry service privatization got a polite but firm message from chairman Erwin Malzer. “Thank you very much for bringing your concerns to us but no decision will be made until we receive the request for...
Aboriginal health strategy hopes to improve care outcomes
THOMPSON-OKANAGAN - Tailoring healthcare for the 54,000 First Nations living within the Interior Health Authority will improve the quality of life and health outcomes and ultimately save money by reducing the need for services amongst a population that is overrepresented within the system. That’s the message behind the aboriginal health and wellness strategy adopted yesterday...
Health authority continues to monitor possible Ebola cases
THOMPSON-OKANAGAN - If the ongoing Ebola epidemic has a human face within the Interior Health Authority, it’s that of Patrice Gordon, a nurse practioner who returned from West Africa last December and promptly began displaying the early signs of of the disease. Gordon tested negative for the virus, but since then the health authority has...