Interior Health and the RCMP have announced an expansion of mental health assistance programs in Kamloops.

Susan Brown, CEO of Interior Health, has confirmed the so-called “Car 40” program is being widened.

“We are expanding operational hours of service to 12 hours a day, seven days a week. In addition, we are making changes to bring increased levels of consistency in training, rules, reporting, and evaluation.”

This will mean hiring two additional mental health nurses will be hired, and one more RCMP officer will be trained, to staff “Car 40” from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m.

Brown says they’ve been planning on this expansion for a while, saying it runs separate from a BC government announcement last month to fund similar programs in the province.

“This is a commitment, by interior health out of our global budget to support this work, but with this announcement, of course it provides us opportunity potentially as we look to other communities across the southern interior.”

Chief Superintendent Brad Haugli, commander of the RCMP’s Southeast District, says there’s a rationale behind why the program will not run through the overnight hours.

“The hours of work are based on the evidence they have gathered from this analysis, through the committee, from data that we gathered from interior health and our sources through the prime data base.”

Currently, the Car 40 program, which pairs a mental health nurse with an RCMP officer during a mental health call, only runs 4 days a week in Kamloops.

The program, which they’re now calling Integrated Crisis Response Teams, is expected to be expanded in early 2023.