Family health team's new Lively site to care for 6,000 patients

Dr. Katie Richardson said she’s looking forward to helping her new patients improve their health when the City of Lakes Family Health Team’s new Lively site opens early next year.

Richardson, the daughter of Ward 11 Coun. Janet Gasparini, will work at the clinic along with Dr. Sarah Duncan, Dr. Monica Susil and Dr. Liisa Levasseur. All four are newly-minted physicians who went to medical school elsewhere in the province, but did their residency training in Sudbury.

“I think a big part of being a family doctor is helping patients manage their acute illnesses,” Richardson said, speaking to reporters after a July 13 press conference.

“As a family health team, we have hospital privileges, so we’ll manage their acute illnesses in the hospital as well as in the clinic. Certainly, there’s lots of chronic disease — lots of diabetes and high blood pressure — that will have to be managed.

“We’re all quite keen on health prevention and promotion — trying to maintain the health of the citizens of the community.”

Sudbury MPP Rick Bartolucci announced at the press conference that the province has given the go-ahead to put out the tender for renovations to the new clinic site, which will be located in the former Town of Walden Building on Black Lake Road in Lively.

The province will pay for 50 per cent of the construction costs, and the other half will be paid for by the City of Greater Sudbury.

However, the exact figure for the project’s cost was not given because companies will soon be bidding on the contract. Dave Courtemanche, the family health team’s executive director, did say the project will cost several hundred thousand dollars.

The City of Lakes Family Health Team, which provides primary health care through a collaboration between family physicians and other allied health professionals, such as nurse practitioners, registered nurses, pharmacists, dietitians and social workers, opened its first site in Val Caron in January 2008.

It opened its second site, in a space behind Pioneer Manor, in June 2008.

Richardson said the new clinic will take on up to 6,000 “orphan” patients, or those who don’t currently have family doctors. It is estimated that 30,000 Sudburians are currently without a family doctor.

She said they will choose their patients through those signed up with the province’s Health Care Connect Program, which helps people find family health care providers. To register with Health Care Connect, go to www.ontario.ca/healthcareconnect or phone 1-800-445-1822.

Dr. Tom Crichton, vice-chair of the City of Lakes Family Health Team’s board, said the family health team currently cares for 14,500 patients in the city.

Most of these patients were already rostered with the 11 family physicians who joined the family health team in 2008, but about 5,000 more patients gained access to a family physician because of the creation of the family health team.

Crichton said family health teams can care for more patients because several different types of health professionals are working together, and the family physician “isn’t the only resource” for patients.

“A nurse practitioner can be seeing a patient for something that the physician might have had to do on their own before,” he said.

Sudbury’s family health team also uses electronic medical records, something which Crichton said “enhances efficiencies around organizing your practice, planning for care and prioritizing health interventions and preventive care.”

Crichton said the family health team hopes to open a fourth site in Chelmsford at some point in the future, as this was part of the family health team’s original application to the province in 2005.