Who We Are
Maternity Matters Kamloops is a grassroots collective comprised of local advocates, birth workers, parents, and community builders. Concerned and outraged by the dangerous inaction of Interior Health and the Ministry of Health in addressing the dire state of maternity care in Kamloops, Maternity Matters Kamloops has organized and is calling on the community to use their voice to demand immediate change.
Current State
Maternity care in Kamloops is at a breaking point.
In the fall of 2025, the Thompson Region Family Obstetrics (TRFO) clinic — a cornerstone of local care — stopped accepting new patients, citing critical staffing shortages and lack of specialist support. Just weeks later, all seven obstetrician-gynecologists at Royal Inland Hospital resigned their hospital privileges, warning of a “near-total loss of low- and high-risk obstetrics in Kamloops.”
These decisions reflect years of unresolved challenges: unsafe workloads, failed recruitment efforts, and inadequate provincial support for women’s health. Families are now left facing uncertainty about where they will give birth, with some forced to travel outside the city to access care.
While Interior Health and the provincial government emphasize long-term solutions like new medical schools, those fixes are years away. Expectant families in Kamloops and the surrounding areas need safe, timely, local maternity care today.
Maternity Matters Kamloops exists to advocate for urgent action and to ensure families are not left behind.
Every parent deserves the right to deliver close to home, supported by a system that values their safety, dignity, and community.
Advocacy Priorities
Maternity Matters Kamloops is calling for urgent action to protect safe, local maternity care. Our priorities reflect the concerns raised by physicians, midwives, and families in our community:
1. Stabilize Staffing
Recruit and retain obstetricians, family doctors who practice obstetrics, midwives, and maternity nurses through competitive contracts, sustainable workloads, and strong recruitment incentives. Families cannot wait for long-term fixes — the workforce must be stabilized now.
2. Guarantee Continuous Hospital Services
Ensure 24/7 access to safe, local labour and delivery — including surgical obstetrics like caesareans — at Royal Inland Hospital. Every expectant parent deserves the right to deliver close to home safely.
3. Rebuild Collaborative Care Models
Support team-based approaches where OB-GYNs, family physicians, midwives, doulas, and lactation consultants work together. A wraparound, patient-centered model empowers families and improves outcomes.
4. Advance Equity in Access
No family should be forced to travel hours to access basic maternity care. The province must address the disproportionate impact on rural, Indigenous, and lower-income families and guarantee equitable, timely access to services.
5. Demand Transparency and Stability
Interior Health and the Ministry of Health must provide clear, timely updates about service changes, recruitment efforts, and concrete steps being taken. Families deserve honesty and accountability as decisions are made about their care.
6. Hold those responsible for this crisis accountable
Leadership requires integrity and commitment. The provincial government and Interior Health leadership have failed in their responsibility to keep pregnant people, babies, and their healthcare providers in the Kamloops region safe. Those responsible must be held accountable in meaningful ways for this harm.
“My own birth experience showed me what maternity care should look like. I had the privilege of working with a midwife, an OB-GYN, doulas, a lactation consultant, and a dedicated team in labour and delivery and the NICU. This collective, patient-centered model provided wraparound support that left me feeling empowered, safe, and confident as I navigated my first pregnancy and birth. I know firsthand the difference it makes when care is coordinated, compassionate, and accessible. That’s why I’m advocating today — so every expectant family in Kamloops can experience the same level of support and dignity I did.”
Chloe Barton
New Mother
Kamloops Resident
Advocate
The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result...it's time for change. It's time for women's voices to be heard! We deserve better, our families deserve better, our babies deserve better!
Kayla Wolfe
Mother
Birth Worker
Advocate
Why put these expectant mothers at risk for fatal outcomes, why put women at risk of delayed diagnosis and treatment for conditions that can be managed easier with early diagnosis and treatment. The government is disregarding women’s health as a whole and laying blame on the practitioners.
Interior Health and the Provincial Government must rectify this dangerous gap in our healthcare system before someone dies. We know that women’s healthcare is chronically ignored and underfunded, and the misogyny of our own government is on full display in their failure to adequately address this crisis. As a mother, and as an advocate for women, I am outraged by the state of maternal healthcare, and demand better for myself and the other women and children in my community. Interior Health and the Provincial Government must be held accountable for this egregious failure, and take steps to immediately resolve this crisis. The consequences of this failure will impact all of us, but some will certainly be hit harder than others. It won’t be the Interior Health administrators or elected officials most impacted by this, nor will it be their wives and daughters; this avoidable tragedy will befall those in our community who are already the most vulnerable. If you care about maternal and fetal health, and believe that our government and health authority have a moral, ethical, and legal obligation to fix this problem of their own making, then join us in demanding change NOW.
Alix Dolson
Mother
Agency Coordinator, Kamloops Sexual Assault Counselling Centre
A failure this profound, dangerous, discriminatory, and forewarned on the part of Interior Health and the BC Ministry of Health is inexcusable.
If any question remained about whether Interior BC women, children, and those who provide our healthcare are valued by those in power, it has been answered loud and clear.
But there is no “them” without us.
So join us.
Add your voice of outrage to our cry for the equitable and fundamental healthcare that the Kamloops region deserves.
Katie Neustaeter
Mother of 3
Lifelong British Columbian
Kamloops City Councillor
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