A new medical clinic in Sechelt hopes to blend the efficiency of the private sector with community-led health care and ultimately become a new community health centre.
Dr. Annette McCall opened the Seaside Clinic at 101-5485 Wharf Avenue with ceremony and celebration on July 13, a few weeks after the clinic started welcoming patients. (Disclosure: The Seaside Medical Clinic and Coast Reporter share a building and a landlord. Coast Reporter occupies the top floor of the building.)
While McCall –– who has been a family doctor in B.C. since 1991 and is a former chair of the Sunshine Coast Division of Family Practice –– created the clinic privately and the clinic does not currently have capacity for new patients, the dream is that it becomes a community health centre, with a team of physicians and allied health professionals using the space.
“I've always had a dream of helping the future of primary care evolve into the new century,” says McCall, adding the days of having one family doctor for 40 years are gone. “It burns us out, and none of the young physicians are wanting to take on a panel [of patients].”
Having worked with many medical students, residents and younger physicians over the past decade and a half, McCall says she’s paid attention to what they’re saying, what they’re staying for and what they’re not. It’s with that in mind, she’s built the Seaside clinic.
While the clinic would be a patient’s “medical home,” where their charts live, the rotating team of physicians and nurse practitioners would treat patients, allowing more sustainability for the people practising medicine.
“Ultimately, you are going to be served and helped by team-based care, some self-managed care,” says McCall. In her eyes, this includes both fast medicine (a walk-in clinic) and slow medicine (more holistic care –– physical, emotional, mental).
Accessible and equitable care is the vision for the Seaside Medical Clinic, achieved through a private business model but community-owned governance.
It’s envisioned that the clinic will become a non-profit community health centre with a governance board rather than an operational board, with an executive director and a high-functioning administrative team. McCall also sees using technology, like AI scribes, to help make the clinic more efficient in labour and other resources.
The clinic needs to run as a private business model, says McCall, as governmental agencies, NGOs and health authorities “are not necessarily as efficient with use of manpower and technology.”
“Private business is still one of the best models to get things done,” she says.
McCall gives the example of Bowen Island, where their centre took more than a decade from inception to fruition, including hundreds of volunteer hours and millions of dollars in donations.
“At some point, I just decided I'll just build it, because we need it,” says McCall. “Sechelt Clinic closed and everybody went to Cowrie. There’s no room at Cowrie. There’s not much room at Gibsons. Arbutus is full. Upstream is full.”
McCall secured the space in April and her own community of patients stepped up to help her create the clinic. Contractor Andy Koberwitz, as former owner of West Coast Log Homes, did deconstruction, pulled in sub-contractors and got the building permit in astounding time with help from the District of Sechelt's James Nyhus. Koberwitz donated his time and lumber, someone else donated drywall. Project managing and making-things-happen power couple Peter Scales and Vicki Raw were also critical to the clinic's fruition.
Seaside clinic was ready to welcome patients two months later.
McCall hopes to turn the enterprise into a non-profit community health centre this calendar year and is working with a local group headed up by former Sechelt Mayor Darnelda Siegers to do so. Then, eventually, the plan is for the centre to get charitable status. The latter will take time, and in the meantime, the centre could tuck under another non-profit with charitable status.
“I really want this to be a community-owned, community-governed clinic,” says McCall.
Currently, though, the clinic is still funded by McCall personally. As the sole physician at the clinic currently, McCall cannot take on new patients. As she hopefully attracts new doctors, they’ll be selecting more patients from the waiting list (sign up for the waiting list at healthlinkbc.ca/find-care/health-connect-registry).
The clinic will need a medical director, a position McCall is happy to take on for the short-term, especially since she has a vision for the clinic, but ultimately, she wants the clinic to grow beyond her.
“To some degree, it's a baby, right? We're wanting to have this baby flourish.”
