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Work on the proposed expansion to the Hunter River patient medical home has not begun, despite $1.5 million allocated in the government’s latest capital budget.
During question period Tuesday, Green Party Leader Matt MacFarlane said a local group has spent nearly three years trying to expand the Central Queens Health Centre into a larger patient medical home that could take more Islanders off the provincial patient registry, but is “being blocked at every turn.”
“They’re certainly not being blocked,” Health Minister Cory Deagle said in the legislature. “I’m hoping to make an announcement next month.”
While Deagle did not provide details on the expansion during question period, he pointed to the $1.5 million commitment in the capital budget and said the work “will be” done.
MacFarlane said expanding the clinic’s physical footprint is critical if the province wants to attract more doctors and nurse practitioners to the area.
He said the community group behind the project has repeatedly revised its plans at the request of authorities.
“These people have done everything that they’ve been asked to do,” MacFarlane told reporters on Tuesday.
“It’s just frustrating when you have those pieces in place, you have the community, you’ve got the facility, you’ve got the desire to grow, you’ve got the people willing to do it, but yet almost three years later we’re not seeing the fruits of the labour of the community.”
MacFarlane describes the South Shore Health and Wellness Clinic in Crapaud as a proven ‘if you build it, they will come’ success story that has already expanded and attracted multiple health professionals. (Thinh Nguyen/CBC)
MacFarlane added that there is land available to expand the Central Queens Health Centre and said modernized facilities are essential to recruiting health-care workers.
“If you don’t have the space, you don’t get the health-care professionals to come out,” he said.
He pointed to his experience on the board of the South Shore Health and Wellness Clinic in Crapaud, one of the province’s patient medical homes, as a model for what could happen in Hunter River.
He said the Crapaud clinic got to where it is now through “many years of advocacy” and local residents pushing for it dating back to the previous Liberal government.
Over time, he said, the Crapaud clinic has undergone at least two expansions to its original footprint, which has helped draw more health professionals.
“If you build it, they will come,” MacFarlane said.