Walk-in clinic extends hours

Times Reporter    

 

Strathmore’s first after-hours walk-in clinic opened its doors on October 2012. Since then the initiative has been such a success that the doctors at the Valley Medical Clinic have decided to add another walk-in time. The new clinic time will be on Wednesday mornings from 9 a.m. to 12 p.m. 

“The one that is running on Mondays has been very well received by the public. We’d just like to expand further and we’re hoping maybe other clinics might come forth with other walk-ins as well,” said Dr. Ward Fanning.

“There are some people that realize that they shouldn’t be in emergency but they have nowhere else to go, so we just like to provide an option for that.” 

Because Strathmore has become a bit of a regional centre, Fanning said there has to be some sort of a safety valve that allows people to seek medical services without having to go to the emergency department. 

There are a few new doctors in town now but so many people cannot find a family doctor, and normally that is where people would go for non-emergency medical attention. 

“The fact of the matter is with so many people moving to town and not enough new doctors to meet that need, I think this will be a great option for people,” said Dr. Alison Clarke. 

The walk-in clinic, which is partially sponsored by the Primary Care Network, started to help alleviate some of the stress on the hospital emergency room. 

“The hospital emergency is overrun and what we’re finding is that we’re getting sicker patients, more acute patients and more pathology and an aging population in the emergency department and it just really makes it difficult to handle non-emergent things, and the waits become longer and longer,” said Fanning. 

“A lot of the simple things should not be in emergency, it just clogs the whole system, it’s very expensive and nobody is satisfied.” 

He encourages people to see if they can get an appointment with their regular doctor first before heading to emergency. Fanning said common sense prevails when determining whether or not to go to emergency, and for anyone unsure there is the option of calling Health Link Alberta. 

The town and the clinic are always looking for new doctors to come to Strathmore. They feel that bringing in more family practitioners will help take the burden off of the hospital. 

“This is not a new model at all, if you look back a generation ago all clinics had some form of walk-in component. They were family practice and the family practice people saw their patients in extended hours,” said Fanning.

“It got away from that, and that’s why people have been orphaned with no family doctor and ended up in emergency.”

When Strathmore had a population of 3,000 the hospital’s emergency room was able to handle the over-flow walk-in traffic. 

Now that the town is 13,000 plus people, it’s putting a strain on the hospital that they are not able to handle as well. The physical space is just not there to accommodate the increase in patients. 

Another issue in Strathmore is that in the past people learned to go to emergency if they needed to see a doctor after hours because there were only a few doctors in town, and they didn’t have the manpower to offer extended hours while also covering shifts at the hospital. 

“Here traditionally people just learned that if I need to see a doctor afterhours I’ll just go to emergency. We’re trying to really retrain people that that really isn’t the best use of resources and we all know why it had to work over the years,” said Clarke. 

If the new walk-in clinic time also proves to be a success then there is the potential to add another day and time to the clinic. Daytime was picked to provide a different time slot option that may work better for some people than the evening clinic does. The new walk-in clinic hours start on March 26. Anyone seen at the clinic is strongly encouraged to follow up with his or her family doctor.