Six doctors at the Harbour Health Partners Medical Clinic in Saint John are the latest to work under the Family Medicine New Brunswick model.
Lyndsey MacDonald is one of them and she believes the program will take some of the pressure off overcrowded emergency rooms.
The clinic will be open evenings and weekends, and patients can see any one of the six physicians who work there.
“We will be able to help keep our patients from unnecessarily going to the already overcrowded emergency rooms and after-hours clinics,” says MacDonald.
Lyndsey MacDonald is one of the six family doctors who make up the Family Medicine team in #SaintJohn. She says feedback has been overwhelmingly positive. pic.twitter.com/QWGiIleTqg
— Brad Perry (@BradMPerry) March 27, 2018
The program is designed to improve patient access, increase collaboration between doctors, and create a better work-life balance for physicians.
The doctors have a combined 7,000 patients, which MacDonald says is just the right amount.
“We all do things outside of our office, which is part of the joy of our group,” she says. “We all teach at the medical school and we do a variety of things here in the hospital — I do obstetrics, we’ve got doctors who look after our in-patients.”
Four doctors in Oromocto were the first to sign on to the program, and Health Minister Benoît Bourque says more will be coming on board “very soon”.
