Nanaimo's new urgent and primary care centre, set to open next week, will be the second clinic in the city patients can access without a family doctor, outside of the hospital emergency room.
The facility, located at 3260 Norwell Drive, will take patients on a call-in basis, according to Shelley Birchard, manager of the Central Nanaimo Urgent and Primary Care Centre.
"It's based on urgency," she said. "I think what happens [at a] walk-in, [is] it could be a lineup with 50 people but there is no way of telling the need or urgency within those 50 people who arrived, and if it's first-come first-serve, the 50th person might be the one that's in the most need. This is an opportunity through our phone system to really understand what is presenting for that person, to assess and then articulate and book in with the right provider."
Nanaimo's other primary care centre, the Medical Arts Centre, takes appointments on a walk-in basis, leading to lineups before the centre opens.
The Central Nanaimo Urgent and Primary Care Centre is planned to facilitate more than 86,000 patient visits each year, and connect 4,770 people to primary-care providers in the region via a provincial attachment system pending ongoing recruitment efforts.
At its full staff capacity, the centre will employ approximately 36 full-time equivalent health-care workers, including 10 family physicians and two nurse practitioners, 15 registered nurses, seven social workers and mental-health and substance-use clinicians, and two community health workers. In addition, there teams will be supported by non-clinical roles including a clinic manager and medical office assistants.
The clinic is designed to be secure, for the safety of patients and staff, with locks throughout the building requiring a key-card access and one primary door that leads to the waiting room. To the side of the building is a secondary door used to access the 'Thunderbird wing' for patients who would benefit from extra privacy.
Snuneymuxw elder Connie Paul said the design of the wing came through collaboration between Island Health and local First Nations.
"When we looked at it, I said, 'the part that doesn't meet our people is when those who are our most marginalized who are harmed in our community … they need a place where they don't have to walk in front of a lot of people,'" she said. "It could be domestic violence, it could be sexual assault."
An RN at the Snuneymuxw First Nation Health Centre, Paul said some victims perceive having to walk around a crowd of people in a waiting area as a "walk of shame" that can dissuade them from receiving the care they need.
"As a community health nurse of 36 years, this is the first time where I will be able to phone ahead and say, 'I have a woman who needs special care, she will need to have a sexual assault kit' … they will be able to come through that door of privacy and cultural safety, where the person who meets them at the door will be trauma-informed."
The Central Nanaimo Urgent and Primary Care Centre will be open seven days a week for urgent primary-care needs from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. by calling 833-688-8722.
The ministry of health has committed $8.8 million in annual operating costs with an additional $200,000 for start-up and the $8.2-million capital cost.
