No flu assessment clinic for east-end residents

The east-end was conspicuously absent from the city’s list of designated clinics, with three centres listed for central Ottawa while the west end has two and the south has one.

News of the clinic locations prompted some local councillors to question why the east appears to have been overlooked.

“This is not acceptable, we have a population of 100,000 and why can we not have at least one assessment clinic in our community?” Orléans Coun. Bob Monette asked of the city’s chief medical officer Dr. Isra Levy in an e-mail copied to local media.

“As far as that goes we are also under-serviced with roving clinics,” he continued. “The east will not stand by and allow sub par service to our community.”

In his reply, Levy indicated the city has been working with family health teams and primary health care clinics in the east end over the last several months in an attempt to establish designated flu assessment sites.

“Regrettably, the AIM family practice group withdrew its offer to participate at the last hour,” Levy wrote, adding Orléans Urgent Care continues to be a partner and will provide services to residents, but has asked the city not to list it as a designated site.

While factually true that AIM withdrew at the last minute, the group only had days to respond to the request, noted AIM Health Group chief medical officer Dr. Jim Ducharme.

“We were told we had a 24-hour response time,” he said. “We looked at it from a senior management view and our resources and realized we just couldn’t find the resources given that we only had a 24-hour turn-around.”

AIM has tried to be actively involved in the H1N1 process by supporting others, Ducharme continued. In Ottawa and the Peel area, he explained, AIM has tried to make nurses available to give the vaccine.

“In a six day period we had to find 200 nurses,” Ducharme said, noting they were scheduled for a set of clinics before there was a change and AIM was told literally two days ahead of time they would be used in other clinics instead.

Planning was tough for management, he explained, noting there had been no real certainty as to when the vaccines would arrive.

“We had people working 14 hours a day on weekends just to make things work,” Ducharme said. “When we looked at the assessment centre, we were already strained to find those nurses and we just didn’t have those resources, so rather than attempt to give a proposal that wouldn’t have been an honest one, it was just simpler to withdraw.”

AIM clinics, however, continue to see patients as usual.

The Orléans Urgent Care Clinic, meanwhile, is stocked and prepared to see anyone who goes through its doors, said Marion Moritz, the clinic’s executive director. And while she urges residents to visit their family doctors first, she indicated the clinic is there if needed, as always.

In an attempt to increase access points in eastern Ottawa, Levy noted Ottawa Public Health is currently working with a family health team in Rockland. Arguing Rockland is too far for residents to travel for assessment, Monette has asked the province if it can do anything to ensure a publicly designated clinic is available for residents in the east.