South Delta residents may have to drive a bit if they want to find a walk-in clinic to help them with their aches and pains.
The only clinic operating in the area is the Lark Medical Clinic inside the Walmart at Tsawwassen Commons and it only takes patients two days a week, with phone calls required to book an appointment.
That’s down from three walk-in clinics previously, two of which closed because the family physicians operating them couldn’t keep up with the demands of a walk-in clinic.
Geri McGrath, executive-director, of the Delta Division of Family Practice, said it’s hard to say how many walk-in clinics are needed for South Delta, adding that ideally, the community could use an urgent and primary care centre.
“I don’t know that we’ll get one, so we need to be able somehow support our unattached (people without family doctors) in the community,” she said.
Urgent and primary care centres help people with non-emergency issues, such as sprains, cuts, or burns, aches and pains, with the aim of reducing the demands on hospital emergency departments.
So far, 35 UPCCs have opened around the province but there is no word on putting one in South Delta.
“We keep asking. I don’t know why we’ve been passed over,” McGrath said. “Maybe we’re too small, I’m not sure. However, Mission has one and they’re smaller than we are.”
Fraser Health said last month that more UPCCs are being established and that communities without them are being considered.
The Delta Division of Family Practice covers Ladner, Tsawwassen and Tsawwassen First Nation, with a combined population of more than 50,000, which continues to grow.
McGrath said the hope is the primary care network, now in the early stages of planning for South Delta, could help people who are still waiting to find a family physician.
A primary care network gathers health professionals into a group, usually based on geography, allowing quicker patient referrals and more streamlined and quicker care.
Delta and Abbotsford are two of the last areas in the Fraser Health region not to have a primary care network. Seventy-eight such networks have had funding approved and have been, or are being established around B.C.
Richmond Division of Family Practice has three primary care networks that have been operating for five years and has as two urgent and primary care centres.
However, there are no clinics available on a complete walk-in basis in Richmond either.
Jennifer West, executive-director of the Richmond division, said since the pandemic, people can no longer just walk into a clinic in Richmond and that to her knowledge, there are no other walk-in clinics in Richmond, which has four times the population of South Delta.
Instead, there are three clinics available for appointments on short notice, but patients must be already attached to one of those clinics.
“I think the situation is as critical everywhere, across the Lower Mainland, and across B.C. Primary care is certainly in crisis,” West said.
McGrath said input from the community in South Delta shows that people are looking for a doctor after hours.
“We’ve heard that loud and clear,” she said. “Such a clinic would help keep people from going to emergency departments.”
South Delta now has 44 family physicians, two more than last year, although a few doctors are set to retire.
“It ebbs and it flows,” McGrath said.
However, in the last year and a half, the division has found doctors for more than 5,000 people.
It’s difficult to know how many people are waiting for a family physicians because many have doctors in other cities. It’s a complicated process recruiting physicians, she added.
If people need non-emergent care they need to go to another community, or to a UPCC in another area or go to White Rock.
The Surrey-North Delta Division of Family Practice has six primary care networks. That includes North Delta and all of Surrey which has a population of more than 600,000.
