Primary care clinic for Community Outreach Centre clients showing positive outcomes

A doctor on P.E.I. is providing a primary care clinic at the Community Outreach Centre in Charlottetown.

Dr. Reuven Stott works as a hospitalist, but he's also been helping with the health-care needs of clients at the centre for the last six months. Stott now holds a clinic at the centre at least once a week to address the needs of people experiencing homelessness or addiction — and in many cases, both.

Stott's hope is to alleviate strains on P.E.I.'s health-care system by providing services to vulnerable populations.

"Reducing ER visits by clients or patients that may visit the ER multiple times, now they can visit our clinic," he said.

"We've been able to prevent hospitalizations and open up rooms in the hospital, and we've been able to even facilitate early discharges [from] the hospital, which gives ... individuals who are waiting in the ER more access to a hospital bed."

Work at shelters and facilities like the outreach centre is something Stott has done previously in larger centres.

"I trained in New York City and I did a lot of outreach work there." he said. "I've ... done a lot of inner-city work inside the States and Toronto, where I am originally from."

He helped develop shelter clinics at Toronto's Maxwell Meighen Centre.

"It was just literally myself, I don't want to say a broom closet but something similar, and a computer and we started seeing clients and we were able to do fabulous work, really helping the individuals there," he said. "So, when I came here I saw some need for that, especially with some of the clients I see coming through the hospital." 

So six months ago, Stott walked down to the Community Outreach Centre at its former location on Euston Street with a backpack full of medical equipment and spoke with representatives from The Adventure Group, which runs the centre.

"Set up an exam table and we just started to see people," he said. "Things kind of expanded from there [and] we were able to get funding for a nurse to come on."

Now there is regular nursing care at the outreach centre's new location, off of Park Street. Stott runs a clinic there once a week, but will deal with more serious issues outside of those hours if he's alerted to them by nursing staff.

Stott said he was drawn to the work because he's lost friends to overdose and family members to exposure. Right now, he said, the clinic is providing a lot of foot care.

"If people are are sleeping outside or sleeping rough, even if it's in temperatures above zero, if it's prolonged enough they'll get injury to their hands and their feet. They may develop ulcers or infections that can get quite severe quickly," he said.