A small community in rural P.E.I. decided to improve health care on their own by opening a local clinic. Local pharmacist Lisa Gallant led the opening of the South Shore Health and Wellness Centre, which has continued to grow since it first opened in January 2018.

In 2017, Lisa Gallant saw her community in Crapaud with no access to a family doctor. With no primary health care left, Lisa knew something had to be done. She worked with the community to open a health centre. Gallant teamed up with other community leaders to start a non-profit called South Shore Health and Wellness Inc. They raised about $10,000 to open a small walk-in clinic in January 2018, using the old pharmacy kitchen as their first space. Since then, that tiny clinic has expanded twice and is now working on a third expansion to offer 5,000 square feet of space.

Lisa Gallant said there were times she felt like their health clinic would never happen. But the present-day centre has a good care team, including a doctor, nurse practitioners, licensed practical nurses, nurses for chronic diseases, and a physiotherapist. The new expansion will make room for more staff.

Gallant and her group had hoped for this kind of team-based health care support from the start to meet the needs of people in their growing rural community. It took years of hard work and talks with the government to get here, but now they hope that other small communities in P.E.I. can do the same. Across the province, this kind of team-based, collaborative care is becoming more common, as 17 clinics like this have opened.

Source: Thinh Nguyen, CBC