The Recorder & Times published an article on February 1, 2024
By Sabrina Bedford
Thousands of residents without a family doctor in Mallorytown and the greater Leeds and Grenville region will soon have access to a full-scale primary care clinic.
The province’s health ministry announced on Thursday the results of an extensive process to expand primary care access across the province to people without a family doctor – and the application to bring a clinic to Mallorytown submitted by Upper Canada Family Health Team executive director Sherri Hudson, with help from MPP Steve Clark and Front of Yonge Mayor Roger Haley, was successful.
Clark and Haley worked with the Upper Canada Family Health Team to submit the application in April 2023, and its approval means up to 6,600 local residents without a family doctor will soon have access to primary care.
“I want to thank the people of Mallorytown and the entire riding for their support of the need to expand primary care,” Clark said in a statement.
“I look forward to working with the Upper Canada Family Health Team and community partners to serve this significant amount of unattached patients.”
Clark said the Upper Canada Family Health Team and Brockville General Hospital will work with several community partners, including public health, other family health teams, the regional paramedic service, the City of Brockville, and local pharmacies to expand access to primary care for local residents.
The clinic will specifically be designed to be “accessible to unattached and marginalized patients seeking care,” Clark said.
While the application was initially for a nurse practitioner led clinic, Haley said the new format – focused on a more holistic approach to primary care – will provide a “better-coordinated service” for residents in need.
“It made more sense to do the application through the family health team because then we can co-ordinate those efforts, and those professions, into the clinic in Mallorytown, if necessary,” Haley said in a phone interview on Thursday.
The medical staff on site will provide primary care services, but will also be able to work with the other agencies involved to provide programs and services such as mental health, chronic disease management and prevention, and care co-ordination.
“The family health team has access to that other branch of health care,” he said.
The move comes more than a year after the Good Doctors virtual walk-in clinic in Mallorytown closed its doors, prompting Haley to push the province to bring in a replacement.
The Upper Canada Family Health Team, a multi-practice health team that works “collaboratively to provide comprehensive and accessible health care,” is made up of 26 physicians and a group of nurses, social workers, and administration.
It has practices spread out over 10 different sites in Brockville and across Leeds and Grenville, and is the largest primary care team in the region.
“Our community expects high-quality primary health care,” said Sherri Hudson, executive director of the health team, in a written statement.
“This investment will assist the Upper Canada Family Health Team continue to play a vital role in the community’s health and well-being.”
Haley said there’s no firm timeline on when the clinic will be open to the public since it will take some time to hire health-care workers to staff it – something he said may be challenging with the shortage of nurses throughout the province.
“That’s why it was critical to get this announcement in sooner than later so we could get going on the rest of the process,” he said.
He added, however, the former clinic in the Mallorytown Pharmacy, where the new clinic will be housed, is ready to go at a moment’s notice.
“The space is there. All the equipment that’s needed for the clinic is still there,” Haley said.
In its announcement Thursday, the province said the primary care expansion would cost a total of $110 million, but it was not yet clear how much of that funding would go toward the Mallorytown project.
Clark confirmed the details of the funding allocations were still being worked out as of this week.