As the Minden Urgent Care Clinic continues into its second year of operation, there is a new executive director at the helm.
Cinnamon Tousignant has replaced Marina Hodson as the head of the team that is now running the local clinic seven days a week out of the former Minden emergency department.
The clinic first opened its doors for weekends on June 30, 2023. It is now open seven days a week from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. There is a dedicated registered practical nurse (RPN), nurse practitioner (NP), and administrative support person during the week. On the weekends, casuals fill the shifts.
“Generally speaking, we’re very consistently staffed, even despite there being a human resource crisis in healthcare,” Tousignant said July 8. She attributed it to staff being local, “fairly” local, or who were involved in the beginning.
“They’re just really committed. They love being up here. They love the community. They want to provide healthcare services. There’s a lot of personal values and ethics that tend to come into play, so people like being a part of the community in which they live,” Tousignant said.
While they trialed an additional virtual care component in June, the part-time NP offering the service has left for another job. It is on hiatus, although Tousignant is hopeful a potential hire may join the clinic in the fall to resume virtual care days. For now, they essentially remain one NP short for three days of the week as per their funding. But Tousignant said they were happy to do the groundwork on the position as the virtual care, “is an excellent back up and can boost capacity.” While the NP was available Tuesdays, Wednesday and Thursdays, the clinic did not have to turn anybody away due to capacity and Tousignant said people were “satisfied” with the virtual offering.
“There are still a lot of things they can address virtually but you can’t suture somebody,” she said.
The clinic has registered more than 7,000 patient visits in its first year of operation. Tousignant said with three designated staff weekdays and casuals on weekends, they are capable of seeing 25 patients a day, 364 days of the year. That said, they had 35 on July 6.
At 25 a day for all but one day of the year, that equates to 9,100 visits in a full calendar year.
“That is what we’re likely looking at to accomplish,” Tousignant said, adding it is definitely taking pressure off the Haliburton hospital ER department. They only redirected 15 patients there in the last year after being assessed at the clinic. She attributes that in part to good education about what the clinic does.
“An urgent care is different than a walk-in. There’s quite a bit more we can do than a walk-in.”
Haliburton Highlands Health Services president and CEO Veronica Nelson told attendees at a recent AGM, the number of emergency department visits there dropped 29 per cent, down to 17,480 in 2023/24, from 24,701 the previous year, with 4,479 urgent care clinic visits in HHHS’ fiscal year.
Tousignant added they also see a lot of people who do not have primary care providers. “We are an urgent care but the reality is we’re also primary care for a lot of people. And that is actually where the virtual care room was very helpful. Because someone coming in for a prescription renewal, in and out with virtual care. We have to triage and prioritize through the urgent care, and you can easily sit there for three or four hours waiting just for a prescription. That’s a lot.”
Taking over the ED post effective April 1 this year, Tousignant is aware of the history of the Minden ER being shuttered on June 1, 2023 with just six weeks’ notice.
“I definitely recognize there are a lot of emotional connections to what happened here. I can understand people being upset that they’re losing their emergency room. I understand from the funding and HR perspective why it happened, but that doesn’t negate how uncomfortable it made people not to have an emergency room department, valid, valid concerns,” she said.
Tousignant has been with KNFHT for 15 years. Prior to that, she was with the Canadian Mental Health Association. She took a break from management but says she is enjoying being back. Hodson has remained in a part-time capacity as finance and human resources manager.
