Whitehorse walk-in clinic will now see patients who have a family doctor

Yukoners who already have a family doctor now have another option to access same-day, non-emergency care — the Whitehorse walk-in clinic.

The territorial government says the clinic can now see more people, and so it's expanded eligibility to include people who already have a family doctor.

When the clinic opened two years ago, the government said it was designed in part for the thousands of Yukoners who don't have family doctors.

Health Minister Brad Cathers says the change now is about trying to relieve the "significant" pressure on the Whitehorse hospital's emergency department.

"It was something that we jointly discussed with Yukon Medical Association and all of us agreed that this would be a beneficial change," Cathers said.

"We're trying to maximize the use of all of the resources within the health-care system as much as we can."

Cathers said the walk-in clinic now has twice as many physicians working shifts there than it did a year ago, meaning there have been "multiple unfilled appointments."

He says Yukoners are still encouraged to book an appointment to see their family doctor if they have one, and to use the walk-in clinic only as an alternative to visiting the emergency room for same-day, non-urgent care.

"We're pleased that we're able to offer this and hope that it will help reduce the volume in the emergency department and the wait times at the emergency department," Cathers said.

Meantime, the Whitehorse hospital is also making some changes aimed at reducing wait times for people. This week, the hospital introduced a new system that allows patients who need bloodwork done to track expected wait times at the outpatient lab.

Tanya Solberg, with the Yukon Hospital Corporation, says it will allow people "to better prepare and plan for their trip to the hospital."

"So now instead of coming to the hospital and finding out once you arrive roughly how long your wait might be in the outpatient lab, you can actually go on our website and see what the current wait times are, almost in live time," she said.

She said such systems are common in southern hospitals, and Yukoners have said they wanted something similar.

Solberg said the plan is to have something similar in place for the emergency room and the hospital's walk-in x-ray services, possibly by spring.