A new medical clinic, able  to treat two dozen patients every week, opens in Picton and Wellington this month.

Family Health Team Executive Director Barinder Gill was at Shire Hall Tuesday with the details. The clinic will be nurse-practitioner led, and opens Feb. 27.

In Phase 1 of the launch, the Community Clinic will run two days a week, once at the Harbourview Clinic in Picton and once at the Sandbanks Medical Centre in Wellington. Primary care will be provided by an experienced local Nurse Practitioner, Kim Doxtator. Consultative support will be offered by a PEFHT physician.

“Too many 
residents rely on our hospital emergency department as their source of primary care because they have nowhere else to turn.”


Family Health Team Executive Director 
Barinder Gill

NOWHERE ELSE TO TURN

“Overall, the PEFHT has a desire for a healthy community where all residents of Prince Edward County have the best possible health throughout their lives.”

Phase 1 of the project fills a gap until the local resident can be attached to a primary care provider. There are already plans to expand the program. Phase 2 would see the clinic expand to five days a week but that ambition will require additional funding. 

Mr. Gill noted that as of October 2023, 2,000 residents were registered on Health Care Connect, a provincial waiting list for a family physician.

In a statement issued following the council meeting, Mr. Gill said the launch of the Community Clinic is a testament to the PEFHT’s care for the community.

“To be able to do this with no additional funding is quite remarkable. The Family Health team has risen to the challenge and sees this clinic as an opportunity to be of
even greater service. We remain very hopeful that provincial funding will follow so that we can connect even more patients to primary care.”

The new clinic will connect Prince Edward County residents without a primary care provider to programs and services offered by the PEFHT. It will save local patients from heading to the hospital’s Emergency Department for run-of-the-mill maladies, such as sore ears and throats, sprains and strains, skin infections, prescription renewals, and other routine concerns.

Patients with health care challenges requiring emergency intervention, including difficulty breathing or shortness of breath, severe stomach or chest pain or tightness in the chest, continuous vomiting, broken bones, are of course still expected to head to Emergency. 

The Clinic will be open 9 to 3:30 on Tuesdays in Picton at 35 Bridge St. Suite 1 and 2. 

Thursdays it is open 9-3:30 in Wellington at the Sandbanks Medical Centre at 12 Prince Edward St. 

Phone lines will open on Mondays from 1- 4 p.m. and on Tuesdays from 8:30 to 4:00. 

Call 613-827-8775 to book an appointment, or book online by visiting www.pefht.ca.