One of the most unique medical centre's in Canada is now officially open in High River. 

The new medical center has been named after former Prime Minster Charles Clark who was a former publisher for the local newspaper and a High River Hospital Board member.

"He was a strong citizen of the community and also a very strong supporter of health care, and Peter and I are very pleased he has been honoured," the Right Honourable Joe Clark says about his father. 

His other son, the Honourable Justice Peter M. Clark was also there to celebrate the opening of the Charles Clark Medical Centre.

Dr. Ron Gorsche, who has been a family physician in High River for 34 years, saw need in the community for more physicians so he took action.

"We were facing a crisis with physicians retiring and we weren't recruiting so we could see that in a couple years we were going to be in trouble," he explains.

Three of the four new doctors at the facility are graduates of the Rural Physician Action Plan of Alberta Innovative Rural Family Medicine Training Program of which High River is a teaching site.

One of the new physicians recruited to the Center, Nicole Roper says "I worked here a lot  as a resident and a medical student and I loved the community.  I loved all of the other physicians here, all of the other allied health care professionals that worked here and they were all great at teaching. I just wanted to come back and give a little bit back to the community."

Dr. Gorsche says over the next ten years the facility can take on an additional 8-10 physicians.

The land for the Centre was donated by the town and the financing was arranged by the MD of Foothills. 

The brand new equipment was donated by the local hospital foundation, the local Rotary club and a private patient donor. 

The Center has already earned a number of provincial awards and a national award for the unique partnership between local governments, community organizations and local physicians in order to boost available medical services for High River and surrounding areas.