BRANDON — A downtown facility that has been closed for almost a decade is ready to operate as this city’s first minor injury and illness clinic after a $600,000 renovation — all it needs is doctors.
Prairie Mountain Health is recruiting staff for the clinic, which was announced by Premier Wab Kinew and Health Minister Uzoma Asagwara in March.
The clinic at 144 Sixth St. will operate seven days a week, from 10 a.m. to 10 p.m. and will treat patients who have fractures and sprains, rashes, fevers, sore throats or ears, abdominal pain, eye infections, colds and coughs.
About $130,000 was paid for by grants from the Brandon Downtown Development Corp., said Jennifer Ludwig, president of Super Thrifty Drugs Canada Ltd.
“Super Thrifty Drugs Canada took on the rest of the bill,” Ludwig said.
Super Thrifty Drugs Canada is an independently owned pharmacy chain with 16 locations in Manitoba — two in downtown Brandon — and one in British Columbia.
“Western Medical Clinic used to operate out of this space, and they moved out of there coming up to 10 years,” said Ludwig. “That’s the space that’s been revamped and redeveloped. Super Thrifty became owners of the building, and our goal was always to fill it with health-care professionals and bring health care back to downtown Brandon. We want to bring it back to its former glory,” she said.
The clinic was part of a $17-million Budget 2024 investment to open new clinics across the province, with $1 million earmarked for Brandon.
One physician already practises at the site: Dr. Mbuyu Bushidi is a cardiologist and is not attached to the minor injury operation, but Ludwig said his office was the “first domino to fall into place” and that her hope is “if you build it, they will come.”
Five months ago, Prairie Mountain CEO Treena Slate told the Brandon Sun the health region was “short approximately 80 general practitioners and hospitalists.”
Last summer, the Brandon Clinic ended its walk-in services because of a severe shortage of family physicians.
On Tuesday, Doctors Manitoba told the Sun there are “serious concerns that with the current doctor shortage, this new clinic will pull resources away from the ER and local clinics.”
A spokesperson for Prairie Mountain Health said they were told there was a need for the clinic by health-care providers last June, and they are “recruiting physicians from across Brandon and the region to fill each shift at the clinic, which will have a nurse, nurse practitioner and physician.
“An expression of interest has gone out for physician and nurse practitioner positions, as well as other required positions,” the spokesperson said in an email.
The “magnitude” of the renovation on Sixth Street is a first for Super Thrifty Drugs Canada, said Ludwig, who added she realizes there is a risk, because “it can’t operate without physicians, nurse practitioners.”
“That’s always a worry. Brandon and all of Manitoba is hurting for doctors and the goal of this space was never to poach doctors from other established locations,” she said.
“Hopefully it will attract new grads or physicians looking to come to Canada or (from) elsewhere in Canada.”
— Brandon Sun