Drop-in clinics - where, you say?
As published in MapleLine Magazine: May 6, 2009
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by Mary P. Brooke
Unlike other small towns in BC, there is no regularly accessible drop-in medical treatment clinic for residents and visitors in Sooke. After-hours services are provided on a goodwill basis by six actively-practising physicians: Drs. Robin David Saunders and Tomas Vally (Sooke Evergreen Medical Centre, 114-6660 Sooke Rd.) and Drs. Ellen Anderson, Jeffrey Pocock, Anton Rabien and Tracy Forsberg (Harbour Family MEdical Clinic, B-6625 Sooke Rd.).
After much inquiry, it can be discovered that their offices are open on weekday evenings and weekends on a rotating basis. Both clinics seemed satisfied that posting after-hour service son their doors is sufficient. Shoppers Drug Mart and People Drug Mart can provide the clinic hours in a pinch. The availability of drop-in medical services is not posted in any evening/weekend public place nor found online without a lot of digging, compiling and phone followup.
A new brochure called Where to Find Help in the Sooke Region (available at the District of Sooke office, SEAPARC, churches, schools, Sooke Crisis Centre and the CASA service agency) states one set of "Urgent Care Medical Clinic" hours buried within a list of counselling services, while inquires to the two doctors' offices produced these hours (alternating between the two locations): M-Th [5 pm to 8 pm], F [3 pm to 6 pm], Sa [9 am to 1 pm], and Su [10 am to 1 pm]. Indeed, the service hours are "not carved in stone" as one local pharmacist put it.
The nearest 7-day-a-week drop-in clinic is the Colwood Medical Treatment Centre at 1910 Sooke Road (in good weather a 25-minute winding highway drive from Sooke town centre). The emergency room at Victoria General Hospital is another 15 minutes from there. Highway driving is not always a reliable or viable option for thos ein need of emergency medical care, especially for those who might be disoriented by their injury, as well as the elderly, disabled, or those with injured or unwell children.
Apparently provision of a clinic in Sooke has been discussed among local physicians and the District of Sooke in recent years; the cost of office rental (real estate acquisition requested of the docotrs), has been the primary stumbling block. Both Dr. Keith Martin (MP for the Esquimalt-Juan de Fuca) and John Horgan (MLA for Juan de Fuca) support development of a treatment clinic with lab and xray at the Ayre Manor seniors care facility in Sooke. As more new housing/commercial developments are built in Sooke perhaps the possibility for construction of a self-sustaining medical clinic will emerge.* MM
This article is Copyright 2009 Brookeline Publishing House Inc.
See the printed article on page 25 of MapleLine Magazine (Spring-Summer 2009 issue / May-Jul.2009).
* Since publication on May 6, John Horgan was re-elected as MLA for the Juan de Fuca riding, and it has been said that the new Mariners Landing development might include provision of a medical clinic a few years from now.
Submit your commentary about medical services in Sooke. Write to: editor@maplelinemagazine.com
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