Pointe Claire family clinic gets boost

BY ANDY BLATCHFORD

andy.blatchford@transcontinental.ca

The Stillview Medical Group will enhance its connectivity to other health institutions, now that the Pointe Claire doctors’ office is a Quebec-financed

family medicine group (FMG).

The investment will create the West Island’s first FMG, a family doctor clinic aimed at providing better access to the health system.

Stillview is the 12th FMG on the island of Montreal and 124th across Quebec — up from 17 in 2003 — according to Jacques Cartier MNA Geoff Kelley, who spoke at a press conference held to unveil the initiative on Monday morning.

The announcement arrived weeks before the Liberals are expected to call a provincial election.

“This is a way to help doctors be more efficient, to work better together and offer a better quality of care to their patients,” he told reporters.

He said the government aims to open nine FMGs in the West Island. “I think it’s something over the next four years that should be doable,” Kelley said.

But with the FMG’s seven family doctors already caring for 9,000 registered patients, the clinic cannot add any more to stem the West Island’s “biggest crisis in health care,” according to Dr. Ian Campbell, a physician at Stillview.

“I’m hoping that becoming an (FMG) is going to attract more doctors . . . and allow better access for patients around here, but as far as the doctors we have at the moment, they’re all full, as is the case I think for every doctor on the West Island,” Campbell said at the news conference. “The biggest crisis in health care in the West Island right now (is) that a lot of people do not have access to a family doctor.”

A recent study for the island of Montreal revealed that 33 per cent of the population do not have access to a family doctor, according to West Island Health and Social Services Centre (WIHSSC) spokesperson Louis-Pascal Cyr. West Island-specific numbers are not available, but the WIHSSC estimates the situation is similar in the region, he added.

Campbell expects the attractive FMG structure to lure another family doctor to the clinic. About a year ago, Stillview was able to hire a physician based on the anticipation it would eventually become an FMG, he added.

The funding will provide Stillview with its first computers, help with rent, add nursing and administrative staff and create a linked system to institutions such as the Statcare walk-in clinic — located in the same building — and the Lakeshore General Hospital, which is across the street.

The greater connectivity and added employees are expected to take some of the load off doctors and save time in retrieving patient information, such as test and radiology results, from other institutions, he said.

“The patients will be getting more efficient and better access to the health system,” Campbell said.

Suzanne Turmel, WIHSSC executive director, said the FMG framework will provide patients with guaranteed access and follow-up to health services from their general practitioner.