Group Health patient could lose his doctor for using a walk-in clinic

The patient says he tried calling the Group Health Centre walk-in clinic for three days in a row and no one answered

When a local man experienced frightening symptoms – blood in his urine over the course of several days – he reached out to his doctor’s office at Group Health Centre to make an appointment.

He was told he would not be able to get an appointment until December, and when he told them he might go to a walk-in clinic – he was told he could lose his family doctor for doing so.

“I said, what I’d like to know is, could I just go to a walk-in clinic?” recalled the man, who asked to remain anonymous for this story.

“I was literally told, ‘well, people that do that, there’s the opportunity that they could be de-rostered from the Group Health Centre patient list.’ I was really shocked to hear that.”

He was told to make use of GHC’s same-day clinic – which takes rostered patients on the same day, if they can secure an appointment by phone, but he says he called for three days and no one answered. 

“No answer, no nothing – it just kept ringing, ringing, ringing,” he said.

“I never got through. I did that for three days and never got anybody picking up the phone on the other end.”

He’s since stopped trying to get immediate care for the issue – despite his worry there could be something serious that caused it.

“You know why I haven’t done a damn thing? Because whatever is there is broken,” he said.

Although there’s no longer visible blood in his urine, he’s unsure of what caused it or whether there’s still an ongoing issue.

“I’m not a physician. I don’t know. Maybe it’s just on pause. Maybe I’m still bleeding somewhere else,” he said.

Now, the man is disillusioned with Group Health Centre, and he’s worried about what his experience could mean for others dealing with worse health conditions.

He was told de-rostering for seeking alternative care doesn’t happen on a regular basis – but that it’s happened before.

“Once is enough,” he said. “The alarms for me started going off, more with concern for people that are in far worse off shape than I am.

Wondering about what he’d been told, the man contacted a local pharmacy and asked whether he could, in fact, be de-rostered for seeking care at a walk-in clinic.

The pharmacist confirmed that he could be. 

The man said he felt frustrated with the lengthy wait for a doctor’s appointment and the fact that he could not access the same-day clinic – or a walk-in clinic – to be assessed sooner.

“If I wait two weeks or three weeks to get an appointment, if that’s how long it were to take . . . then it’s maybe too far gone,” he said.

When asked by SooToday, a Group Health Centre spokesperson said patients are only de-rostered under “exceptional” circumstances.

“A decision to de-roster a patient can only be made by the primary care provider and would occur after thoughtful consideration and in exceptional circumstances,” said Ashlee Gerard, manager of communications, planning, and risk.

“When appropriate, we encourage our patients to seek care at GHC first, as we know our patients best.”

Doctors are financially penalized through a “reduction in compensation” when patients seek care through non-GHC walk-in clinics, Gerard said.

“This reduction is part of a provincial policy called ‘negation,’ which is meant to encourage patients to seek care through their regular primary care team whenever possible,” she said.

GHC has numerous procedures in place to support patients, Gerard said, including same-day appointments with their family doctors, nurse triage for urgent issues, appointments scheduled within the week “when assessed as appropriate,” and its same-day clinic.

“When patients face urgent medical concerns, they are directed to the appropriate level of care, such as the emergency department,” Gerard said.

She encouraged patients to make use of GHC’s patient relations department – where they can express their experiences and concerns about their care.

“Feedback from our community is invaluable in helping us improve access and quality of care,” she said.

The patient relations department can be reached at (705) 759-5541 or through the Group Health Centre website.