Group hopes new clinic in Three Rivers will ease eastern P.E.I.'s health-care crunch

Residents in Three Rivers could soon have access to a new walk-in clinic thanks to a community-led effort that's getting support from Health P.E.I.

There have been calls for a walk-in clinic in the Kings County community for years, and they've only grown louder as the wait list for family doctors gets longer and hours are cut at the Kings County Memorial Hospital's emergency department.

Last spring, the hospital's foundation decided to form a special volunteer committee to explore setting up a clinic.

"The foundation wants to do something. We want to do more than just purchase equipment," said Ray Brow, vice-chair of the Kings County Memorial Hospital Foundation.

"We want to contribute to the hospital, take some pressure off the hospital, and that's why this initiative came forward."

'We’re outside of the box, but we’re still within the mandate of the foundation,' Ray Brow, vice-chair of the Kings County Memorial Hospital Foundation, says about the new clinic that could open within the next few months in the Down East Mall. (Steve Bruce/CBC)

That dream appears to be closer to reality now that the foundation has leased a space in the Down East Mall in Montague, initially without a guarantee of support from Health P.E.I.

The group hopes there will soon be doctors on site, seeing patients from around Kings County who might not otherwise have access to care.

Health P.E.I. plans to lease half of the space to run an appointment-based primary-care clinic, specifically for people without a family doctor or nurse practitioner. The other half will be a walk-in clinic, run by a local pharmacy owner.

Brow said the mix of public and private health delivery may seem a bit unorthodox, but he thinks that kind of creative approach is what communities need to solve their primary-care woes.

"We're outside of the box, but we're still within the mandate of the foundation," he said. "What we're doing here is not a cookie-cutter clinic. We're doing something rather innovative and we're working hard at it."

'We’re doing something rather innovative and we’re working hard at it,' says Ray Brow, left, pictured with Norman Stewart, chair of the Kings County Memorial Hospital Foundation, and Theresa Redmond, a member of the committee. (Steve Bruce/CBC)

Both clinics have lined up physicians to work on site for at least a few hours a week. There will also be telemedicine carts that patients can use to access virtual care, with the help of a nurse.

Theresa Redmond, a member of the committee that formed last spring, said the collaboration with Health P.E.I. marks an exciting time for health care in Three Rivers.

Not 'a panacea'

"Although it isn't a panacea for all that we need here in Kings County, we thought it would allow us to have a really important first step while the province builds a new Kings County Memorial Hospital," said Redmond.

"It's just one of the services a community has to have if they want to attract all the best and brightest people… and this may be a small contribution to that."

The clinic has lined up physicians for at least a few hours a week, and nurses will help people use telemedicine carts to access virtual care, says Theresa Redmond, a member of the organizing committee. (Steve Bruce/CBC)

The clinic organizers say there are still some renovations that needs to happen in the mall space, and staffing and additional funding are still in the works.

They're confident that in the next couple of months, the clinic will be up and running at least two days a week.

'We think we're going to make a difference'

Health P.E.I. says it hopes to temporarily set up its new primary-care clinic at the Montague Health Centre soon, moving to the mall location when it's ready.

For now, Brow said he is "100 per cent" confident the clinic will be successful and help to ease some of the burden on the area's health-care system.

"It will move the needle a little bit, but it will not solve the challenge," he said.

"Knowing that this is here will probably improve my access to health care, and I hope [that of] many other people. We think we're going to make a difference."