Chatham-Kent doctors step up to serve patients with no family doctor

The local medical community is teaming up to launch a new primary care clinic Saturday to serve patients with no family doctor or nurse practitioner.

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Local family doctors have agreed to take shifts for Project BridgeCare – Access to Primary Care, a partnership of the Chatham-Kent Ontario Health Team and medical organizations that will operate on the second floor of 20 Emma St. from 9 am to 4 pm every Saturday and Sunday.

“It really is an altruistic initiative,” said Melissa Sharpe-Harrigan, the health team’s executive transformation lead. “We know our family docs are busy and they’re giving up their weekends to offer this service.”

The clinic is only available to people with no primary care provider.

Noting 20,000 to 25,000 local residents don’t have access to a primary health-care provider, Sharpe-Harrigan said, “We know the experience and the ability for those patients to get very simple things like prescription refills or mammogram referral is a mountain, compared to a phone call if you have access to primary care.”

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Dr. Briana Yee-Providence, the health team’s physician co-chair, said about six doctors and two internists, who will be available for urgent consultations, are on board so far.

“I think the doctors who have volunteered to help out really care about the community and they really feel that everyone deserves access to care and good care,” she said.

The clinic will be paid for by part of $1 million in Health Ministry funding the health team sought to boost local residents’ access to primary care.

If doctors were to do this extra work on their own, they’d have to pay to rent space, find staff and cover other overhead out of their OHIP billings.

“We really wanted to provide an opportunity for doctors to be able to come, provide that care and service to the community, but not at a negative impact to them,” Yee-Providence said.

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Sharpe-Harrigan stressed that doctors aren’t necessarily taking away from their patients, because they don’t typically open their offices on weekends. “They are working extra to provide this service, because they see the need.”

Many family doctors also practice in the emergency department and “see the difference in patient outcomes if there is access to primary care,” she said.

BridgeCare is expected to help reduce unnecessary emergency rooms, but it’s not designed to deal with serious medical emergencies, she added. It’s a walk-in clinic, with no appointments required, to treat minor and moderate ailments, illnesses and concerns.

“You walk in (with your valid health card), you bring your medications, and you’ll speak with a family doctor and about (your medical) issues,” Sharpe-Harrigan said,

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The clinic offers access to a family physician for needs including:

• Ear, throat, or stomach pain, urinary tract infections, rashes.
• Minor joint injuries, sprains and strains.
• Chronic condition management and medication refills (eg, diabetes, hypertension, COPD, asthma).
• Cancer screenings (eg, pap tests for cervical cancer, colorectal cancer screening, mammograms).
• Preventive and general health assessments including blood work and imaging as appropriate.

BridgeCare will not prescribe controlled substances or renew prescriptions.

Although it offers access to a local family doctor, clinic users will not become permanent patients of the doctor serving them. And a limited number of patients can be served each day.

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Other parts of the ministry funding will go to boost Indigenous residents’ access to a nurse practitioner and to increase operation of a MobileCare Clinic on Wheels that travels to various Chatham-Kent communities.

The free, walk-in mobile clinic is staffed by a nurse practitioner, social worker and community paramedic from 9 am to 3:30 pm weekdays.

Because Chatham-Kent is very large and not everyone, including many seniors, the frail elderly and newcomers, can drive, “We wanted to make sure we also brought primary care to those patients,” Sharpe-Harrigan said.

For more about the mobile clinic, visit mobilecareclinic.ca.

[email protected]

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