Pellerin: These wellness clinics could ease doctor shortage

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Efforts are underway in Ottawa to expand the clinics, currently aimed at seniors. Everyone without a doctor should have this sort of option.

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Let’s face it, our health-care system is not well and it’s urgent that it get better. We are now at the point where people are wondering whether rural emergency rooms — including in Carleton Place and Almonte — should shut down permanently given how often they have to close for lack of personnel. And there are now about 2.5 million of us in Ontario without a family physician.

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What do you do if you can’t find the latter and the former shuts down on you? Where do you go to ask a professional whether that pain you’re feeling or the colour of the secretions coming out of your toddler’s nose are something you should worry about?

The problem didn’t start last month and it’s much bigger than can be summarized in this space. But it is very real and has painful, annoying, expensive and possibly life-threatening consequences. Oh, and in case it needs saying, none of this is criticism aimed at health-care workers. They’ve been courting burnout for years performing miracles daily with nowhere near enough resources. They need help, not blame.

But back to you and that fever. What are you supposed to do when you feel like maybe something is wrong, or you’re worried you should get screened because of your family history, but you don’t have a doctor who knows you and all the walk-in clinics are full? Do you ignore the problem and risk your health, or go to the ER (assuming it’s open) and spend hours waiting to be seen?

Data released by the Canadian Institute for Health Information earlier this month shows that one in seven visits to the ER were for issues that could have been managed by a primary care provider. Nobody likes feeling like they’re a drain on the system. But at the same time, when something is worrying you and you have no other options, what are you supposed to do?

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A few years ago, as part of a Citizen series on Healthy Ottawa, I mentioned innovative programs including the awesome community paramedic service in Renfrew that monitors vital signs of vulnerable people remotely and makes in-home visits to prevent problems that might require a trip to the ER.

Earlier this year, the Ottawa Paramedic Services and Pinecrest-Queensway Community Health Centre began offering access to primary care services to Ottawa Community Housing residents.

Last May, a group of older adults on Ambleside Drive turned the party room in their condo building into a once-a-month community clinic, with the same partners along with Ottawa Public Health and the local Rexall pharmacy, to provide basic health assessments, wellness checks, medication reviews and the ability to see a nurse or a doctor if needed.

More than 125 residents have been seen since then, according to one of the Ambleside organizers, who says the feedback has been extremely positive. One resident said the clinic had saved their life “by identifying a health issue I was not aware of and getting me the help I needed quickly.”

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Efforts are underway to expand these wellness clinics, including one scheduled for Dec. 18 at the Carlingwood library branch that is already fully booked. Bay Ward Coun. Theresa Kavanagh suggests these clinics are the sort of initiative that Dr. Jane Philpott, recently appointed chair of the new Primary Care Action Team by the provincial government, should seek to establish all over the province. The mandate of that provincial team is to connect every person in Ontario with primary health care within the next five years.

“Given the shortage of family doctors and the overwhelming wait times at Emergency Rooms, these clinics can help older adults have basic health assessments to reduce the need for emergency services,” Kavanagh says.

I agree, and would make this accessible to everyone, not just older adults. That would be a better use of provincial resources than, say, spending tens of millions of dollars ripping up bike lanes. Let’s heal health care first.

Brigitte Pellerin (they/them) is an Ottawa writer.

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