New walk-in clinic at Montague pharmacy aims to be open 3 times a week to start
CBC
A new walk-in clinic has opened in eastern P.E.I., and people in the area hope it can be the start of better health care in the region.
The new permanent clinic is located in McKenna's PharmaChoice on Queens Road in Montague, just a stone's throw from Kings County's largest hospital.
The doctors who staff it have full-time jobs elsewhere, but for now the clinic is aiming to offer opportunities to seek help from them three days a week, as their schedules permit.
The clinic opened its doors last Thursday, and 20 patients received care.
"It feels excellent. It was a lot of hard work and planning that went into it and [I'm] really excited to have it opened. It's going to be great for the community," said Chris McKenna, the pharmacist-owner at McKenna's PharmaChoice.
"We even had people calling the next day saying they really appreciated it, it's great to have in the community — people with no family doctor."
The frequent closures of Kings County Memorial Hospital's emergency department in recent years due to physician and nurse shortages is what really got the ball rolling for a permanent walk-in clinic in the area.
About two years ago, a volunteer group made up of the hospital foundation's staff and members of the Three Rivers community was formed to look at potential solutions.
A clinic run by McKenna was set up at the Down East Mall last December, but that was only ever meant to be a temporary space until the current location was ready.
The volunteer group raised around $200,000 to renovate the space in the mall for the clinic, while Health P.E.I. also opened its own clinic right next door.
Ray Brow, vice-chair of the Kings County Memorial Hospital Foundation, said there was a "desperate need" for care, especially on weekends when the ER was closed.
"We, in hindsight, did not know exactly what we were getting into because it turned out to be an enormous amount of work and an enormous amount of fundraising," Brow said.
"We now see more services here in Three Rivers than when we started, and that was our objective."
The volunteers are grateful to have the new permanent clinic to serve the area instead of patients needing to travel to the next closest emergency department, nearly 50 kilometres away at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Charlottetown.
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