P.E.I. walk-in clinics facing ‘extremely high’ demand amid doctor shortage, COVID strains
CHARLOTTETOWN, P.E.I. — The scarcity of docs in P.E.I. has meant walk-in clinics are straining to shoulder extra of the burden of Islanders searching for entry to primary well being care.
As of Aug. 22, more than 25,000 Islanders lack entry to a household physician or major caregiver. On high of this, hundreds of further sufferers beforehand served by a number of physicians who retired over the spring and summer season are awaiting a brand new household physician.
This has meant elevated site visitors over the summer season to walk-in clinics just like the Boardwalk Skilled Centre on Water Road in Charlottetown.
“The demand is extraordinarily excessive,” Kirk Deboer, facility supervisor with the Boardwalk Skilled Centre, informed SaltWire on Aug. 22.
Fewer physicians are working on the clinic than earlier than the pandemic.
Deboer estimated as many as 5 physicians would have labored walk-in clinics earlier than the pandemic. However this summer season Deboer stated the clinic was working with three common docs.
“Our inhabitants’s grown loads within the final three or 4 years. And folks aren’t capable of entry docs. And a few docs are retiring or transferring on,” Deboer stated.
Trip days
Deboer added the clinic has been seeing extra individuals who was once served by a household physician. On high of this, still-practising docs usually take trip in the summertime.
“On the finish of the day, walk-in clinics are good for some issues. Nevertheless it’s not a superb surroundings to attempt to take care of someone who’s acquired a persistent situation. They want a constant practitioner,” Deboer stated.
The strains on walk-in clinics had been not too long ago highlighted after Dr. Syed Naqvi informed CBC Information he could be quickly closing the one walk-in clinic in Summerside. Naqvi stated this was as a result of he couldn’t discover one other doctor to fill in throughout his trip time.
Naqvi additionally stated the implementation of a brand new digital medical file system, closely promoted by the Division of Well being, has additionally produced an administrative burden, guaranteeing he usually labored as much as 14 hours a day.
Stroll-in compensation
Naqvi’s Summerside Household Clinic and the Boardwalk Skilled Centre function privately-run walk-in clinics.
Deboer stated the province units the charges paid to fee-for-service physicians who work hours in these clinics. The charges docs obtain are considerably decrease than what they’d in any other case obtain for different workplace visits, reminiscent of in emergency rooms or in their very own clinics.
“It is a bit extra out of the kindness of their coronary heart. I would not say it is a money-making enterprise for them,” Deboer stated.
In an e-mail to SaltWire, Well being P.E.I. communications officer Everton McLean stated the Division of Well being elevated these charges on Aug. 1. The brand new charges took impact Aug.15.
“The adjustments enhance the potential billing from walk-in visits and is supposed to take away any barrier to providing the service,” McLean wrote.
McLean additionally famous the province’s Emergency Medical File roll-out was paused in June, partly as a consequence of points raised by physicians like Naqvi.
Opposition questions
The well being critics for each the Liberal and Inexperienced Opposition say Premier Dennis King has did not articulate a plan to cope with rising calls for on walk-in clinics.
“If authorities was actively engaged on rising the entry to walk-in clinics, they’d truly have the ability to inform us how they’re doing that,” Inexperienced MLA Michele Beaton informed SaltWire on Aug. 22. “And Premier King and (Well being Minister) Ernie Hudson have been silent on this complete situation. And it is unacceptable.”
Beaton stated her celebration has steered the province permit nurse practitioners to work in walk-in clinics. So far, the province has not acted on this suggestion, she stated.
Liberal MLA Robert Henderson stated employees shortages in long-term care have additionally meant docs spend extra time treating sufferers in hospital who’re awaiting beds elsewhere. This has additionally impacted ER wait occasions, which ends up in extra Islanders exhibiting up at walk-in clinics, he stated.
Henderson believes P.E.I. has extra individuals per capita who lack a household physician than different provinces.
“We can not seem to get any choices. There is no imaginative and prescient, there is no nothing taking place. It simply continues to worsen,” Henderson stated. “I simply discover the argument ‘it is dangerous all over the place’ — it is simply not an excuse. We’re dangerous, per capita — manner worse than all over the place else.”
Stu Neatby is a political reporter with the SaltWire Community in Prince Edward Island. He may be reached by e-mail at [email protected] and adopted on Twitter @stu_neatby.
