Richmond Oaks Medical Centre opens Oct. 19th and faces growing service demands

[dropcap]C[/dropcap]Construction is finished and the ribbon has been cut ushering in a new era of health services to Richmond. Congratulations are certainly in order for all those involved in bringing this wonderful new facility into being. Not only does it bring a host of new services to Richmond and a new location for the IDA Pharmacy but the facility is garnering many compliments for the way the architecture of the building itself respects the character of the village.

The opening of the clinic is a tremendously positive development but is not without its’ growing pains. There is already more demand for medical service than what can be easily met. This speaks volumes about the degree to which the community needed these services.

Response has been so positive that the clinic is finding it challenging to keep up. Currently the clinic is getting approximately 50 requests per day and many of these are families. This translates into several hundred new patient requests per week.

At the present time the clinic is prioritizing access for local patients to ensure that local community needs get met. With 8000 patients already registered the clinic is only able to take about 50 new patients per week due to the need to balance new patients visits with regular visits from those already registered.

The clinic has 10 family physicians and hopes to have an additional physician start in the new year. This will help with the traffic but will likely not meet the very high demand.  Staff at the clinic are trying their best to meet new demands and are painfully aware that response times can be very slow, sometimes taking several weeks. They ask the community to be patient and are hopeful things will begin to settle more in the New Year.

And what a great result this project has brought in the way of new services to Richmond, not just clinic patients:

LifeLabs – Onsite daily Monday – Friday 7:30am – 12:30pm (they will increase their hours as demand requires) Patients can walk in for lab services.

CMA Ultrasound – Onsite on Tuesdays starting November 6th (they will continue to add days as the volume requires and plan to be here full-time) They offer all forms of ultrasound. Patients with a requisition can book by calling CMA and asking to be booked in the RICHMOND location.

Massage Therapy – Richmond Village Massage is onsite 6 days per week. Patients can book using their website directly.

CARDIOLOGY – Any patient with a requisition for a Cardio ECHO or HOLTER Monitor can be booked in Richmond directly. They can call the clinic to book this or can ask their physician (any physician) to book them at the Richmond Clinic for this service.

OBSTETRICS – There are 2 family physicians that practice obstetrics and deliver their own babies at the QCH. OB patients do not have to be a patient of the clinic to be a patient of the OBs. They can call the clinic to book.

Travel Consult -We have a physician offering Travel Consults. These can be booked at the clinic and patients do not need to be patients of the clinic to book these appointments.

PHYSIO – A full menue of physio services are available at Back on Track … visit www.backontrackphysio.com for more details

WALK IN– The clinic offers walk in spots for PATIENTS OF THE CLINIC ONLY Mon- Thursday 5-8 pm and Saturdays 9-12. These are on a first come first serve basis and should be for urgent needs only.