A clinic that helps hundreds on the peninsula without a family doctor who struggle with mental health and addictions is facing possible closure.
“Unfortunately Island Health has told us our contract won’t be extended past March,” said Dr. Michal Pawlik, co-lead of Saanich Peninsula Outreach Team (SPOT).
SPOT offers care to roughly 700 of the peninsula’s most marginalized and vulnerable, who suffer from a wide range of multiple chronic health issues.
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“They have mental health issues, addiction, unhoused or risk of being unhoused and there are the four First Nations on the Peninsula,” said Pawlik describing who they serve.
SPOT’s patients are considered by the health care system as ‘complex’. Patients that are too onerous for other physicians in the region to take on.
Without the clinic, Pawlik says both its patients, and the overall healthcare system would suffer. It would mean more overdoses, suicide attempts, brain damage, visits to expensive brain clinics and would mean more strain on the already overburdened emergency rooms, said Pawlik.
“They will cause more waits at the ER. Right now, they’re already having shortages, and very long waits at Emergency,” said Pawlik, gesturing to Saanich Peninsula Hospital. “If you have complex patients, not having a primary care provider, they’re going to be more frequently using the ER resulting in longer waits at the hospital,” said Pawlik.
That additional suffering will cost the healthcare system and thereby taxpayers more, said Pawlik.
“We want to continue. In my view this is the ideal location because it’s right beside the hospital,” said Pawlik. “Transportation is an issue with many of these patients. Right now if there’s blood work needed, the hospital is right there.”
Island Health says its a space issue.
“This space at the health unit is needed to support future primary care expansion,” the health authority said in a statement.
That answer is frustrating for Pawlik.
“I see systemic discrimination,” said Pawlik. “It’s a lack of prioritization for mental health and addiction, for patients who don’t pay taxes to put it bluntly.”
In the likelihood SPOT is forced to change locations, Pawlik says the non-profit needs funds to do so.
“We’re asking the ministry to give us the APP contract which would give us some overhead money where we could move to another location,” said Pawlik.
The Alternative Payments program (APP) is the term used to describe the funding of physician services through means other than the fee-for-service method. It provides more reasonable compensation for certain time-consuming services.
Though Health Minister Josie Osborne applauded the team’s work in a press conference Wednesday, in a statement the Ministry of Health says its reviewing the clinic’s application for the APP, but that the review has no timeline.
As they wait, the clinic’s doctor is asking for a shift from Islanders, Island Health and the Ministry of Health.
“We do really need to prioritize the most vulnerable. That will save the system overall cost and it’s the right thing to do,” said Pawlik.