No appointment needed as Kuujjuaq hospital opens walk-in clinic
Ungava Tulattavik Health Center offers triage system with hope of improving efficiency of health care in the community
Kuujjuaq’s hospital now offers a walk-in clinic to Kuujjuammiut. (File Photo)
Kuujjuaq’s hospital has opened a walk-in clinic that patients can access without an appointment.
Due to the growth of the community, there was a need to change systems to make it easier for patients to come in, said Dominic Pelland, nursing and hospital services director at Ungava Tulattavik Health Center.
“What would happen is that some patients would eventually show up without appointments anyway,” he said.
When that happened, patients would be sent home if their conditions were considered non-urgent. In other cases, people who were given appointments might be busy at that time and unable to come to the hospital.
The clinic opened in February. Prior to that, the hospital required people to arrange an appointment according to time slots that were available.
With a no-appointment system, patients will receive the care they need and non-urgent cases can still be seen though they might take some time.
Each patient who comes to the clinic will be evaluated by a nurse who will identify the urgency of the case according to the Canadian Triage and Acuity Scale.
There are five levels: Level one, the most severe such as cardiac arrest or after car crashes where resuscitation might be needed; level two, emergencies such as asthma attacks or a bleeding injury; level three, urgent cases such as abdominal or acute pain; level four, less urgent such as fractures or most lacerations; and level five, non-urgent cases like chronic issues or skin problems.
The difference between the appointment system and the one in place now where appointments aren’t required is the varying waiting times.
“You could wait one, two or three hours in the waiting room,” said Pelland, depending on the number and complexity of cases that come in.
He said no new nurses were hired. Their hours were changed. During peak hours, five nurses are available in the clinic.
“We urge the people to show up between 9 a.m. and 5 p.m. since at that time there will be the most nurses available,” he added.
The clinic is open Monday to Friday from 9 a.m. to 7 p.m. It’s also open on weekends from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. but with only two nurses available.
After a few weeks of working in the new system, “nurses tell me the population is responding well” and the majority of patients show up to the clinic in the morning.
“We’re still in the trial period,” Pelland said of when the clinic sees the most patients arriving. When the picture becomes clearer, nurses will be distributed across that time period accordingly.
He said the walk-in system is based on what’s done in hospitals down south.
“But we needed to adapt it to the reality of the North, since our hospital has many functions other than it being a clinic,” Pelland said.
Nunavik and Quebec are obviously many miles ahead of Nunavut.
Turn Nunavik into its own territory and watch it collapse. Nunavut should have never left NWT.
Wait till ”SELF GOVERNMENT ” kick , then we will be done for.
No worries about that mate, not goin happen. Its just hyped up to keep the fools motivated to join them later and tell them , youre in quebec mate.
💯
I believe there is a connection between why this hospital started their appointments only is because of the young francophone nurse being murdered and to punish the Inuit or the public, management and or board decided to have appointment only. So I was told.
There was a bad vibe in the air then. I was in Kuujjuaq Aug-Dec 2018 working with a construction crew most of whom were Quebecois. Blame is easy to make with little regard for those who live and work there and do well by/for Kuujjuaq despite the ongoing issues.
You’re full of it, enablers are too many.
Great news, a come back later this afternoon could have been catastrophic recently. It was by chance a friend (who was running for Makivvik office at the time and was recognized) insisted she be attended to, that the hospital took her in. An IV treatment was given straight away.
Intoxicated. Hospital deals with too much intoxication, and issues that go hand in hand with the social turmoil. Over the years that’s the inference that caused burnout, attitude problems and prevented many other cases of everyday illnesses and injuries from being attended to in clinic and Emergency even. The impacts of the alcohol has infiltrated every aspect of life in kuujjuaq, over , your turn on those issues, what you say ? No appointment needed either.