Brandon Clinic ending walk-in services

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This article was published 26/06/2023 (846 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

BRANDON — The Brandon Clinic will no longer offer walk-in services, as of July 4, because of a severe shortage of family physicians.

Walk-in services have been offered at the clinic since March 2022, providing patients with a doctor appointment, diagnostic services such as X-ray and lab tests, and additional nursing support.

A shortage of physicians and burnout because of heavy workloads are to blame for the walk-in clinic closure, chief executive officer Darcy Bell said.

“It’s not something we’re thrilled about, by any means,” said Bell. “We always prided ourselves on being a full-service clinic… We feel for our patients, but there are things that we just can’t keep up with — with this level of physicians.”

There has been a slow progression of doctors leaving the clinic, said Bell, beginning about five years ago, with a wave of retirements.

“We had two retirements announced unexpectedly 2 1/2 months ago, so we’ll be down to 31 physicians compared to (COVID-19) pre-pandemic, when we were breaking 40.”

In addition to a full patient load, Brandon Clinic physicians take shifts at the Brandon Regional Health Centre, visit long-term care facilities, travel clinics, and have public health and on-call duties, said Bell.

Because physicians see their own patients as well as those at the walk-in clinic, there are no statistics of how many walk-ins there are in a day. Bell said it would “easily be 60 to 70.”

“Physician burnout is very much a real frustration,” Bell said. “My most immediate threat is retention, keeping everybody healthy and able to work, because losing any more physicians would be pretty catastrophic for the region.”

The Brandon Clinic does not receive any government funding from the province or Prairie Mountain Health.

All the staff, supplies and operation costs are paid for by its physicians. With less doctors contributing to the bottom line, the decision was made to lay off five full-time nurses, one casual nurse and one person responsible for transcription, as the Sun reported June 3.

Donna Klemick worked for the Brandon Clinic for 16 years, and was one of the seven employees given layoff notices. She is concerned about communities outside Brandon that have already lost doctors and emergency rooms.

“The government needs to do a better job at attracting and retaining our doctors and health-care workers, because when our walk-in closes July 4, the other walk-ins are going to become overwhelmed,” said Klemick, also president of CUPE Local 2096, which represents 44 health-care workers.

Newmount Medical Clinic in Brandon is open seven days a week, but about six months ago, it cut back its hours, and closing at 6 p.m. instead of 8 p.m., said Dr. Harjit Benning.

Benning said he was “shell-shocked” to learn the walk-in at Brandon Clinic will be closing, echoing the concern other clinics will be “swamped.”

“We see new patients every day at our clinic. So, yes, all the other clinics will be flooded… (Newmount) will do the best we can for the community,” Benning added.

Manitoba has one of the lowest number of physicians per capita in the country, and it would take the addition of more than 400 doctors to reach the national average, according to the Canadian Institute for Health Information.

More than half of local physicians (55 per cent) are experiencing high levels of burnout, a Doctors Manitoba spokesperson told the Sun.

Two-thirds of clinic owners are worried about keeping their clinic open in the next three years if nothing changes, according to the 2023 Doctors Manitoba annual member survey.

— Brandon Sun