Chatham-Kent councilors recently approved a lease to allow a mobile health clinic in the Bothwell arena parking lot.
The deal with CarePartners/Community Nursing Services Foundation is for a four-year term, with monthly rent being paid to the municipality in the amount of $750, plus tax and yearly inflation.
According to a staff report, administration received a request from the group to lease part of lot for the mobile clinic.
In order to provide more health-care access in more rural areas, CarePartners has been working on setting up various clinics in Ontario.
CarePartners has also received funding from the Erie St. Clair Home and Community Care Support Services specifically for this project, the report added.
The mobile clinic is a 55-foot-long and 20-foot-wide trailer. It will be equipped with a ramped accessible entrance, fully accessible washroom, self-contained water system, and one full-sized treatment room with the option of a smaller IV room.
The lease grants use of enough space to park the trailer, as well as four parking spots to be used exclusively by CarePartners and its clients during the mobile clinic’s operating hours.
“I think (the clinic) is a positive for the area,” East Kent Coun. Steve Pinsonneault said. “It’s going to help a lot of folks, a lot of seniors in that town.”
Noting he recently learned the physician in Thamesville is retiring, Pinsonneault added that more primary care practitioners are needed. However, he said he remains hopeful with the ongoing recruitment efforts.
April Rietdyk, the municipality’s general manager of community human services, said Stuart McFadden, director of economic development, was the main contact in securing the clinic group.
“We have looked at this and they’re willing to have conversations about where we see some needs throughout Chatham-Kent,” she said. “And we will go forward looking at that.”
Rietdyk reiterated that Chatham-Kent has 20,000 residents who aren’t attached with a primary care provider.
“(The mobile clinic) is not meant to replace a primary care practitioner or a family doctor,” she said. “What it does do is provide some really great service to community members. And it helps keep people out of emergency rooms.”