A St. Albert primary care clinic will close its doors in January as its staff move to a location in north Edmonton.
The McKenney clinic, located at 10 McKenney Ave, will close near the end of January and its staff will move to a larger centre that is set to open at 144 Ave and 94 St in Edmonton.
“Nobody’s happy about this … and that includes me,” said Wayne Samuels, general manager of Medicentres, a subsidiary of Quebec-based ELNA Medical Group, which manages the McKenney clinic.
“I never want to close clinics. It has a huge impact on the physicians, on patients, of course, and on our ability to provide care…. It’s always a very difficult decision that’s made over quite a period of time.”
The clinic is closing because it couldn’t afford to stay open, Samuels said.
“Family medicine is in a bit of a crisis,” he said. “Costs have risen very rapidly, and unfortunately reimbursement hasn’t kept up.”
The costs of labour, rent, utilities and medical supplies are the main culprits, but Samuels said that the clinic has “seen increases across the board.”
When its lease came up for renewal, the clinic realized it couldn’t afford to continue operating at the McKenney location and it “was forced to close its doors,” Samuel said.
However, all staff, including support staff, currently working at the McKenney Ave clinic will move to the new Edmonton location.
In an email, ELNA’s director of marketing and communications said that there were no St. Albert-specific costs behind the closure.
Samuels said he has heard a “range of reactions” from patients.
“Some patients have said they will continue seeing our physicians and our healthcare team in the new location,” he said. “Some have expressed that they may look for other providers, but I think the challenge is that there aren’t a lot of providers…. The feeling that was probably most common was one of resignation on the patients’ part. They understand; they’ve seen what’s happening to healthcare right now in Alberta.”
Patient records are shared across the Medicentres network, so patients can continue to interact with any Medicentres physician at any location or online, Samuels said.
The new clinic will be larger, and costs will be shared amongst more physicians.
“This is not the first clinic I’ve had to close over the last few years,” Samuels said. “I wish it was.”
Medicentres has closed more of its clinics in Alberta than in any other province; however, Samuels said that the higher number is because the group operates more of its primary care clinics in Alberta than elsewhere, and Alberta is where Medicentres started.
According to ELNA’s website, ELNA currently operates 24 clinics in Alberta, two in Saskatchewan, two in Manitoba, 27 in Ontario and 28 in Quebec — although not all the clinics are under the Medicentres banner.
The McKenney clinic opened in 2014. Currently two doctors work at clinic full time, but there have been anywhere from four to six physicians who have worked at the clinic since it opened, Samuels said.
Physicians are paid by the province on a per-service basis, said Dr. Alfred Durojaye, president of the St. Albert and Sturgeon Primary Care Network.
They use the fees to pay themselves and for the many costs of running a business, “including staff, rent, utilities, insurance, equipment, and much more.”
“Like every other type of business, we are seeing those costs go up considerably, making it much less affordable,” Durojaye said. “The administrative burden of managing a practice is quite high.”
Physicians hope to see the problem addressed by the province’s Modernizing Alberta’s Primary Health Care System (MAPS) initiative, Durojaye said.
In October, the province released findings and recommendations from a MAPS report. Some of the recommendations included investing $57 million in doctors and nurse practitioners, expanding online mental health services, and making sure doctors are paid even when patients can’t provide proof of insurance coverage.
