No shortage of doctors in Strathmore

Melissa Strle
Times Reporter

 

Healthcare in the Strathmore area has changed significantly over the last five years as more and more doctors have arrived in the area to provide a range of services for residents.
Dr. David Piesas, sectional medical chief of staff at the Strathmore Hospital and physician at Strathmore Medical Clinic, has been practicing in Strathmore for 15 years. He said 10 new physicians have arrived in Strathmore over the last five years.
“That’s changed the whole dynamic within Strathmore since we were a smaller community struggling with no one being able to find appointments and having to go to the emergency room because they couldn’t get in with their family doctor or they didn’t have family doctors,” he said.
Piesas said patients acquired physicians outside of town in previous years as a result of a lower level in the number of doctors. However, in spite of the recent increase in the number of doctors, he believes there are still quite a few patients in the area who have physicians outside of Strathmore.
Currently, there are about 25 physicians providing different levels of care in Strathmore.
“That’s quite incredible compared to five or six which it was five or six years ago,” said Piesas.
He said the increase in physicians started about five years ago with the recruitment of four physicians to Valley Medical Clinic. Then, Pinnacle Medical Centres opened up and hired three new physicians, followed by two more physicians at Crystal Ridge Medical and lastly new physician Dr. Mike O’Brien at Strathmore Medical Clinic this month.
“I think if there are new physicians going to start in town, they may have difficulty in building up a practice. It’s not going to be as easy as it was five years ago,” said Piesas.
He said patients are now able to go to one of the walk-in clinics or to phone their family doctor and get a same day appointment for minor issues. Many clinics have same day appointments and offer walk-in times.
For those looking for a family physician, Piesas recommends phoning around to find doctors who are accepting new patients. He said there is someone at each clinic accepting new patients.
In addition, specialized services are provided by the Primary Care Network in Strathmore, which runs an internal medicine specialist clinic once a week. The network also does consultations on complex, acute care patients who are admitted to the hospital.
Other specialized services are available in Strathmore as well. Vanessa Avramenko, office manager at Crystal Ridge Medical, said the clinic sees a need for specialized services. “Because we do have a lot of elderly in the community, it’s difficult for them to travel to Calgary for multiple specialist appointments, so if we can have services local in town, it’s a lot easier for them to arrange transportation,” she said.
The clinic has an audiologist in every Friday who deals with hearing aids, hearing testing and other hearing issues, and the clinic will also be offering services from the Foot Institute one Wednesday each month. Crystal Ridge is also looking at bringing in a respirologist.
Avramenko said the clinic would like to offer more specialized services in the future.
“It just depends on the companies that are willing to come to Strathmore to give the services,” she said. “It kind of works on if they feel it’s something that our community could benefit from.”
Thirteen physicians work at the Strathmore Hospital in acute care, which houses 24 beds designed for short-term illnesses. These physicians do their own admissions and run their own patients. There are also an additional 12 physicians who run the emergency room. Five of those physicians work in the emergency room only, while the other seven run clinics in town and also perform emergency room shifts.
According to Piesas, the Strathmore Hospital emergency room is one of the busiest Calgary rural emergency rooms, and it peaked in 2008-2009 with 33,000 emergency visits per year. However, that’s currently dropped down to 24,000 visits per year or approximately 2,000 per month.
“That’s probably because of the change in the physician manpower in Strathmore,” said Piesas. Yet, it is still “one of the busiest smaller emergency rooms in Alberta.”
The 24-hour emergency department services a big area since there is no other emergency room between Calgary and Brooks. Piesas said the emergency department in Strathmore sees a lot of people drive out from Calgary due to shorter wait times and there are also a lot of people who turn up from Siksika. He said they have quite a lot of primary care illnesses and a lot of pathology.
Strathmore Medical Clinic offers walk-in services Monday through Thursday from 9 a.m. to noon and 1 p.m. to 4:30 p.m., and Friday 9 a.m. to 12.
Pinnacle Medical Centres offers walk-in services Monday and Friday from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m., and Tuesday through Thursday from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m.
Crystal Ridge Medical offers walk-in services Tuesday through Thursday from 6:30 p.m. to 9:30 p.m. and alternating every half hour between scheduled appointments Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m.
Valley Medical Clinic is open for walk-in services on Mondays from 5 p.m. to 8 p.m., and Wednesday and Thursday from 9 a.m. to 12 noon.