HALIFAX: A mobile primary health care clinic that was in Antigonish last weekend will be visiting more communities.
According to a press release issued by the Department of Health and Wellness on Nov. 1, the clinic will be staffed by nurse practitioners and other primary care providers.
The province said the mobile clinic is a converted fifth wheel trailer that includes all the medical equipment needed to quickly set up a clinic anywhere in the province. It does not provide lab or diagnostic imaging services like blood tests, MRIs or X-rays, and cannot treat patients with urgent or life-threatening medical emergencies, they noted.
During their stop in Antigonish on Nov. 5 and 6, the province said the clinic’s health care team focused on the needs of StFX students, many of whom are not permanent residents who do not qualify for the Need a Family Practice Registry or VirtualCareNS. Appointments were required and had to be booked by phone, they said.
“We have a long history of partnering with Nova Scotia Health to provide many healthcare initiatives for StFX students,” said Margaret McKinnon, StFX’s Director of Health, Counselling and Accessible Learning. “These collaborations have led to improved continuity of care for students and have been invaluable in building relationships with our Nova Scotia Health colleagues. We’re excited to partner with them once again on this project, which will offer a much-needed boost to our limited capacity for providing primary health care to our students.”
Tara Sampalli, Senior Director, Implementation Science and Evaluation, and Global Health System Planning with Nova Scotia Health (NSH), said the mobile clinic is a temporary service that helps bridge the gap in primary care services.
As NSH works with each team and community, Sampalli said they are going design the service to fit local needs.
“We are working with all primary health care leadership team across the province, including the primary health care leadership team in Antigonish, and mostly all of the Eastern Zone,” she told The Reporter. “As we start to confirm, and have the staffing and everything, and have the schedule design with those community leaders, we’re going to start going, concurrently, to different parts of the province.”
Some of the challenges include finding locations, setting dates, and not taking away from existing services, Sampalli explained. Since the mobile unit will be on the move over the next three years, she said it will be travelling around Nova Scotia.
“Every place that has been identified, we are working to ensure that there’s a community location, and then once we have a community location, it’s also about what days of the week,” she said.
Although there are currently no other dates and locations set for the mobile unit, Sampalli said they are looking at regions of the province where there are acute needs.
“Where we have a lot of traffic going towards an emergency department, there are low acuity type of needs which hat can be supported by primary care, so that’s one reason. We’re also going to places where we have retirements, and other reasons why there may be gaps in primary care services,” she said. “And we might have some referrals also from the local emergency department straight to the service.”
Last month, the health minister told The Reporter that one of the province’s main priorities is to address primary care needs.
With pressure on emergency departments across the province, Thompson said the province is working on providing opportunities for people who have low acuity issues, and still need to be seen, but in a different environment.
For those who don’t have a primary care provider, whether a physician or a nurse practitioner, Thompson said it is important they enter their names on the Need a Family Practice Registry so they can access virtual care.
Adopting new ways of doing things can drive better care for patients and help doctors put down roots in communities, and one example of innovation in health care is the mobile primary care unit which was put on the road in the Cape Breton Regional Municipality after Hurricane Fiona, Thompson noted.
The province said more than 300 people visited the clinic, which offers a combination of in-person and virtual treatment for injuries and illnesses such as flu or cold symptoms, rashes, muscle pain and urinary tract infections. They said people can also get prescriptions refilled or renewed.
“The global shortage of health care professionals requires that we look at non-traditional approaches for delivering health care. And while we continue to work hard at recruiting and retaining more doctors, nurses and other vital healthcare workers, we must also look at new ways to meet the more immediate healthcare needs of Nova Scotians,” Thompson said in the press release. “The mobile clinic, along with VirtualCareNS, the introduction of urgent treatment centres, more community-based primary care clinics, and expanding the scope of primary care services offered by pharmacies will ensure thousands more Nova Scotians have access to care.”
The mobile clinic was created through Nova Scotia Health’s Innovation Hub and is a partnership between Nova Scotia Health, Emergency Health Services, key community partners, and Praxes medical group, the province noted.
Action for Health, the government’s strategic plan to improve health care in Nova Scotia, encourages the health authorities (Nova Scotia Health and IWK Health) to develop innovative primary health care models to deliver care when, where and how it is needed, the province said. The mobile clinic will help provide the care Nova Scotians need and deserve, which is a key solution in the plan, they stated.
“The Nova Scotia Health Innovation Hub, through working with partners, is using a test and try approach for innovative delivery of care in our province,” Gail Tomblin Murphy, Vice-President, Research, Innovation and Discovery and Chief Nurse Executive, Nova Scotia Health said.