Picton Gazette published an article on February 21, 2024
By Jason Parks
A new medical clinic, able to treat two dozen patients every week, opens in Picton and Wellington this month.
Family Health Team Executive Director Barinder Gill was at Shire Hall Tuesday with the details. The clinic will be nurse-practitioner led, and opens Feb. 27.
In Phase 1 of the launch, the Community Clinic will run two days a week, once at the Harbourview Clinic in Picton and once at the Sandbanks Medical Centre in Wellington. Primary care will be provided by an experienced local Nurse Practitioner, Kim Doxtator. Consultative support will be offered by a PEFHT physician.
“Overall, the PEFHT has a desire for a healthy community where all residents of Prince Edward County have the best possible health throughout their lives.”
Phase 1 of the project fills a gap until the local resident can be attached to a primary care provider. There are already plans to expand the program. Phase 2 would see the clinic expand to five days a week but that ambition will require additional funding.
Mr. Gill noted that as of October 2023, 2,000 residents were registered on Health Care Connect, a provincial waiting list for a family physician.
In a statement issued following the council meeting, Mr. Gill said the launch of the Community Clinic is a testament to the PEFHT’s care for the community.
“To be able to do this with no additional funding is quite remarkable. The Family Health team has risen to the challenge and sees this clinic as an opportunity to be of
even greater service. We remain very hopeful that provincial funding will follow so that we can connect even more patients to primary care.”
The new clinic will connect Prince Edward County residents without a primary care provider to programs and services offered by the PEFHT. It will save local patients from heading to the hospital’s Emergency Department for run-of-the-mill maladies, such as sore ears and throats, sprains and strains, skin infections, prescription renewals, and other routine concerns.
Patients with health care challenges requiring emergency intervention, including difficulty breathing or shortness of breath, severe stomach or chest pain or tightness in the chest, continuous vomiting, broken bones, are of course still expected to head to Emergency.
The Clinic will be open 9 to 3:30 on Tuesdays in Picton at 35 Bridge St. Suite 1 and 2.
Thursdays it is open 9-3:30 in Wellington at the Sandbanks Medical Centre at 12 Prince Edward St.
Phone lines will open on Mondays from 1- 4 p.m. and on Tuesdays from 8:30 to 4:00.
Call 613-827-8775 to book an appointment, or book online by visiting www.pefht.ca.
Gill also shared with AFHTO:
Hello AFHTO Team,
I wanted to provide you with a bit of an update as to what PEFHT has been up to over the last few months. We submitted a proposal for a full-scale community clinic in the Spring of last year, and while we haven't received any funding, we recognize the unattached situation in Prince Edward County continues to grow and we feel obligated and have a real desire to support all County residents with their primary health care needs. In the absence of funding, we've been able to look at our existing resources and will be offering a community clinic 2 days a week, no added financial burden on the system or our operations.
The Community Clinic, in its current state, is designed to provide primary care to residents of Prince Edward County (PEC) who do not have a provider. This clinic is not a walk-in clinic and residents will be required to book an appointment to see a primary care provider. The clinic will offer problem specific care for all ages, connection to local supports to help manage other health care needs, internal program and service referrals as required (to those programs already open to unattached residents). The clinic will also provide short-term follow-up and investigations and post-assessment specialist referrals. Based on feedback we have received from clinicians and residents, the clinic will also provide form completion services, specifically driver’s abstract/clearances, return to work authorizations, and clearance forms to participate in school sports or other activities.
The plan is to have 24 appointments available every week between Picton and Wellington and the clinic will be staffed by one of our NPs with clinical support from an RPN and admin support (all existing resources we have), we will have 3-6 hours of physician consulting and support available as well. Unfortunately, with our current resourcing we can only operate the clinic twice a week, but should PEFHT be funded, we'd be able to expand to 5 days a week with a more enhanced scope (additional recruitment would be required).
A focus of this initiative is to connect residents to care, in the right place and at the right time, and in doing so, divert residents from the emergency department, preserving those resources for true emergencies. Above all else, our efforts every day and with special initiatives like this one will help to ensure that PEC residents have the best possible health throughout life. We will continue to deliver all existing programs and services without interruption and without impact. This initiative is simply another way for us to support and be of service to our community.
Yours truly,
Barinder
Barinder Gill
Executive Director
Prince Edward Family Health Team