Our Health Centre in Chester will start welcoming patients to their first walk-in clinic Friday.
Thelma Costello, chair of the Our Health Centre Association’s Board Directors, says they hope the move helps serve people who are currently waitlisted for a doctor.
Costello says it was something the community was looking for.
“The community members built the clinic, that’s their money and they built it and they supported it expecting to have access to care and that didn’t materialize to the extent that we hoped.”
Costello says there are around 400 people on the waitlist for a doctor in the area.
The association recruited three doctors to do shifts in the clinic – two from the Chester area and one from the Halifax Regional Municipality.
Costello says the community has had a positive reaction to the initiative.
“The comments from community members has been overwhelmingly positive and this is what we hoped would happen that there would be access.”
Everyone is welcome, whether you’re from the Chester area or not, but if you already have a family doctor, you’re urged to go there first.
The clinic will also take non-Canadian patients, who will be charged at the time of their visit.
Costello says she hopes that the clinic provides comfort to seasonal residents as well who now know they will be able to access a doctor outside of an emergency room setting.
The walk-in clinic opens this Friday from 2 to 8 p.m.
It will also be open Saturday 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. and beginning April 17, Tuesday from 3 to 7 p.m.
