A Chelmsford clinic that was initially supposed to open in mid to late 2015 is now slated to open its doors in early 2017.
The City of Lakes Family Health Team, which currently operates clinics in Val Caron, Sudbury and Walden, has planned to open a fourth location in Chelmsford since 2014.
The Rayside-Balfour region has been under serviced for years due to physician retirements and doctors moving out of the community.
The new City of Lakes clinic is expected to serve around 5,000 patients once it's fully operational.
But David Courtemanche, executive director of the City of Lakes Family Health Team, said dealing with multiple levels of government – the City of Greater Sudbury and the Ontario Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care – has made the process take longer than expected.
In July 2015, when the facility was expected to open in early 2016, the city approved $936,922 to renovate the former Rayside-Balfour town hall to host the clinic, while the province said it would pay $504,443 for the renovations.
“Because it's a city-owned property, they've taken the lead around the whole tender process,” Courtemanche said.
Ward 3 Coun. Gerry Montpellier said the project faced multiple layers of red tape that delayed construction.
“All the building blueprints had to be approved the the Ministry of Health,” he said.
The city awarded the contract for the renovations in the spring of 2016. Work started in the summer and is expected to be completed in early 2017.
The construction delays have also affected physician recruitment.
In 2015, the clinic had recruited three of the four physicians it needed to operate at full capacity, but one dropped out to “pursue a different opportunity.”
The health team now has two physicians attached to the project – one expected to graduate from the Northern Ontario School of Medicine in July 2017 – along with a nurse practitioner, registered nurse and other health-care professionals.
Courtemanche said it will be easier to recruit more physicians once the clinic is operating and there is more certainty.
He said the City of Lakes Family Health Team faced similar delays with its Walden clinic, which opened in 2011, although the project did not take as long to complete as the Chelmsford clinic.
