Duane Hicks
Starting Oct. 4, the Fort Frances Family Health Team (FHT) will be offering a drop-in clinic every Monday from 4-7 p.m.
The drop-in clinic at the Fort Frances Community Clinic will be first-come, first-served, and is intended to treat patients who can’t wait for an appointment but are not in so urgent need of care they have to go to the emergency room at the hospital.
Nurse practitioner Cathy Bock said the focus will be on the patient’s immediate needs, such as treatment of minor illnesses or minor injuries, renewal of medications, or injections, and she will be seeing patients for a shorter period of time than if they had booked an appointment.
“It’s not going be as long or intense as a visit would be during the day . . . this is something for an acute problem or something that might be quick, like a prescription renewal,” Bock explained.
“They’re a shorter appointment time, and they’re meant to be first-come, first-served,” she noted. “At 4 o’clock, you walk in and your name will be taken, and when the spots are filled, then the doors will be closed and we’ll see the eight or 10 people in that time.”
The drop-in clinic is meant to improve the public’s access to health care while alleviating pressure on emergency wait times.
The Monday drop-in clinic is complementary to the Tuesday evening booked appointment clinic the FHT started offering this summer, and continues to do so.
The booked appointment clinic also runs from 4-7 p.m.
“People who want to have that longer appointment, but can’t access an appointment during the day, can get an appointment on the Tuesday evening between 4-7 p.m.,” noted Bock, who added the Tuesday evening clinic has proven to be quite popular with people who can’t get off work to attend regular morning or afternoon appointments.
“Those are booked well into October before my daytimes are,” she added.
The evening drop-in clinic is something the FHT started planning for about a year ago.
“It’s our mandate by the Ministry of Health to improve access, and it’s something we’ve been trying to do for a little while,” said Bock, adding the time was right to start doing it now.
“It was about a year in the planning process, working out all of the potential barriers,” noted FHT executive director Marlis Bruyere.
“We tried some other things, like we tried an early clinic this summer which went over quite well.
“It kind of helped us realize that people really need better hours to have better access,” she added.
Based on the success of the Tuesday evening booked appointment clinics, Bruyere said she thinks the drop-in clinic will be successful.
Bock noted the drop-in clinic likely will become a permanent service unless the public, for some reason, isn’t finding it is meeting their needs.
Bock, who started at the clinic in March, 2008, and her fellow nurse practitioner Marlyss Thiessen, who began in October, 2007, have proved to be very valuable additions to the local Family Health Team, said Bruyere.
“I think bringing the nurse practitioners here has helped the community because it improved access to care,” she remarked.
“Before, people had to wait three or four months to see a physician.
“This way, they may have to wait three weeks to get a nurse practitioner appointment, or they can come in on the drop-in clinic.
“I think it’s working,” Bruyere added. “People have that quicker access, and until we get our full complement of doctors up, it’s really the only thing that will work.
“And even when we have our full complement, they have their clients they see on a regular basis.”
Bruyere noted many patients don’t realize that when they see Bock or Thiessen, the nurse practitioners also consult with the patient’s family physician, share information, and get advice.
“That’s really how the role is intended to work—in consultation with the physician,” said Bock, adding some patients prefer to see their physician while others like seeing a nurse practitioner, who usually has a little more time to talk about preventative care and education.
Bruyere said many older patients, including her dad and father-in-law, make appointments with nurse practitioners almost exclusively.
A nurse practitioner is a nurse with advanced education in primary health care. Their role is to emphasize health promotion and disease prevention in collaboration with their clients and a variety of other health-care professionals.
Nurse practitioners are licensed to perform 80 percent of what a physician does. They perform health assessments and can order necessary tests.
Nurse practitioners are fully qualified to diagnose minor illness and injury.
They perform a wide range of services covering aspects of what both nurses and physicians do.
They cannot prescribe narcotics, nor change or renew medications for chronic conditions like high blood pressure or diabetes.
