Update Monday, June 12, 2023:
The interim primary care clinic being planned by Horizon Health Network will likely be located in the office of Dr. Catherine Johnston, in the Tantramar Health Centre on Main Street, right across from the Sackville Memorial Hospital. Johnston’s practice is closing at the end of June. Horizon spokesperson Kris McDavid says the health authority is targeting a September start date for the clinic.
Horizon Health Network is working on setting up a temporary primary care clinic in Sackville. The move comes in reaction to the imminent loss of two family doctors who are closing their practices this summer.
Horizon’s regional medical director Dr. Jody Enright was not available for an interview, but sent a statement to CHMA saying that, “as an interim measure, we are securing resources to set up a primary care clinic to provide short-term primary medical care for affected patients.”
A spokesperson for Horizon says the clinic would work in a similar way to the NB Health Link clinics in Moncton and Dieppe that are being operated by Medavie. In those clinics, patients can request online or in-person appointments with a doctor or nurse practitioner, but are not assigned to a dedicated primary care provider. NB Health Link has signed up 23,000 patients in the Moncton region since it opened last summer, and those patients have been removed from the provincial waiting list for a family doctor. Horizon spokesperson Kris McDavid says that patients of the temporary Sackville clinic will remain on the provincial waiting list. He says the interim clinic is a “new concept within Horizon.”
In a Sackville-based clinic, McDavid and Enright say the plan would be to prioritize the roughly 2000 people about to lose their family physician, over the roughly 1400 that are already on the provincial waiting list. Enright says that Horizon will work with the closing Sackville practices, “to prioritize those patients with immediate and chronic medical needs.”
McDavid says the network will hire a dedicated staff of doctors and nurse practitioners to work at the clinic, but could not confirm how many would be hired.
Horizon currently runs a health clinic in Port Elgin with one nurse practitioner. A request for an interview with nurse practitioner Corinna Power about the Port Elgin clinic was denied by Horizon’s communications department.
Rural Health Action Group ‘exploring options’
The Rural Health Action Group has been involved with work on a possible permanent community clinic in Sackville, though no details have been shared about what type of clinic is up for discussion. Co-chair John Higham says that the loss of two doctors this summer, “created a need for more immediate and interim primary care services.” As for a longer term clinic solution, Higham says the group is still “exploring options, not only with Horizon, but in other areas facing similar issues.”
The Rural Health Action Group is co-chaired by former Sackville mayors Pat Estabrooks and John Higham, and has formed a steering group with representative from the municipalities of Tantramar and Strait Shores, the Port Elgin Health Clinic, Mount Allison University, the Rotary Club of Sackville, the Sackville Memorial Hospital Auxiliary and Foundation, and the Drew Nursing Home. The RHAG also has participation in three working groups chaired by Horizon staff. None of the meetings are open to the public.
Mitton calls for clinic investment
In the legislature on Wednesday, Memramcook-Tantramar MLA Megan Mitton took an opportunity to put in a call for investment in a community clinic in Sackville, and more resources for the Port Elgin Health Centre:
“It’s heartbreaking to talk to patients who are struggling to get the health care they need,” Mitton told the chamber, “and it’s frustrating to see the challenges healthcare workers face, especially because this crisis has been years in the making.”
Mitton called for government investments. “My community needs a clinic where we can access primary health care. My community needs more resources to increase primary care access at the Port Elgin and Region Health Centre,” said Mitton. “People in my region need 24/7 access to the ER at the Sackville Memorial Hospital.”
Mitton said investing in clinics could help with retention and recruitment of primary care practitioners, and help “provide New Brunswickers with health care access close to home.”
