A recently opened weekend clinic in Chatham is ensuring patients without a family doctor are still receiving the care they need.
The Chatham-Kent Family Health Team opened the new weekend clinic BridgeCare early last month to provide walk-in service for primary care needs.
Since opening its doors at 20 Emma St. on July 6, the clinic, which operates solely on weekends, has already seen 235 unique patients over 285 visits.
“Those 40 to 80 people a weekend that we’re seeing would otherwise not have access to care. So the options for them would have been to be seen at CKHA or another hospitalized institution,” said Jason Bartell, executive director of the CK Family Health Team. ” Chatham-Kent doesn’t really have that many walk-in clinics, so it does put that pressure on the hospital. So this is now an opportunity to have care that’s outside of the hospital.”
According to the health team, there are around 25,000 residents in Chatham-Kent who do not have a family practitioner.
“We really tried to focus on what the need of Chatham-Kent was,” said Bartell.
No appointment is necessary to access BridgeCare, however, there are a limited number of patients who can be seen by the attending physician each day. The clinic is open Saturdays and Sundays from 9 a.m. until 4 p.m.
