The inauguration of Niverville Open Health is quickly approaching. The new facility, aptly named for its accessibility and open-armed approach, has been under construction through the winter and is now targeting a June opening.
On March 27, a collection of dignitaries and health authorities were given a sneak peek at the new building’s interior and treated to a luncheon in the Heritage Centre’s atrium. Among those in attendance were provincial Health Minister Kelvin Goertzen, MLA for the Morris riding Shannon Martin, and Southern Health-Sante Sud’s Abe Bergen and Kathy McPhail.
Niverville Open Health, located on the east side of the Heritage Life Retirement Living condos, will provide 5,000 square feet of medical space and integrate all of Niverville’s current medical practitioners into one uniquely designed clinic.
“The beauty of this model is that you’ve got [all] providers together, whether it’s physicians or alternate practitioners,” says Kathy McPhail, chief executive officer of Southern Health-Sante Sud. “This is moving healthcare way upstream, where we have wanted to be for years and years. Niverville already has done a lot of that. This is just the next step.”
The new facility emphasizes ease of accessibility, unlike the current disjointed points of access in the Heritage Centre. A single entry will take patients to a common waiting room where they will be able to obtain the services of physicians and nurse practitioners, a chronic disease team, dieticians, a laboratory, and mental health, homecare and public healthcare workers.
The clinic already utilizes an advanced computerization system and has plans to stay current with today’s technology by allowing people to schedule appointments online from a variety of devices, as well as offer online access to patient health records.
“We’re leaning much more toward client engagement in their own health,” says Dr. Chris Burnett, founding physician of the Niverville Medical Clinic. “Being able to contribute to their own health by [electronically sending] in their own blood pressures and blood sugars, those sort of things.”
Though the plan is to eventually add more medical professionals to the team, the real goal is to increase the number of hours the clinic is open by having clinicians run back-to-back shifts, thus optimizing the facility’s potential for longer periods of the day.
Burnett adds that one clinician might work a morning shift, the next an afternoon shift, and another an evening shift.
The province lauds this clinic’s direction in terms of offering healthcare services to a broader region, including much of Ritchot. The government of Manitoba has been encouraging rural communities to work together, sharing their essential services rather than every community aiming to provide its own services.
“Right now, if we continue to grow [as a province] at the rate of 6.5 to 7 percent per year, we’d have two departments left in government: the department of finance and the department of health,” says Minister of Health Kelvin Goertzen. “The department that brought the money in and the department that spends it all.”
Goertzen adds that, were government to provide funds to every community for healthcare facilities, little would be left for education, infrastructure, and all the other important services they are responsible for.
Southern Health-Sante Sud agrees with this approach.
“The [Niverville medical] facility has a good relationship with [the local hospitals],” says Abe Bergen, chairperson of the Southern Health-Sante Sud board. “So, instead of competing and being isolationists, they cultivate good relationships and, I think in the end, you get better patient care and it requires less dollars. We’re thinking regionally all of the time, and when we do that, we’re trying to save money for the region and the province as a whole. Those are really win-win kinds of scenarios and the more that synergy can be built, I think the better off we are.”
Burnett says that a lot of communication will be necessary to get information out about the services they provide so that people can quickly get access to the appropriate facility for their need. As for adding 24-hour emergency service, he says they don’t feel it’s necessary at this point.
“I think that [would] be a step back,” says Burnett. “We’ve got Health Links, we’ve got Access Health Services, and we’ve got Emergency [Medical Response] services. Quite frankly, if you’re calling a doctor at three in the morning and it can’t wait ‘til six or seven in the morning, you should be calling 911.”
Mayor Myron Dyck and Councillor Nathan Dueck were also in attendance at the sneak-peek event. Both demonstrate excitement for the opportunity this clinic will provide for Niverville and Ritchot.
“The benefit of having an Open Health service in our community is not just the fact that we’re getting a better medical facility,” says Dueck. “Niverville has close to 5,000 people. Ten years down the road, we’re expecting to have close to 7,000 people. [A facility like Open Health] gives our community an edge.”
Dueck believes that, as more medical practitioners seek employment at the clinic, they will likewise be looking to relocate to the area. This, together with more families in the region utilizing local healthcare, creates an obvious economic advantage to the region as a whole.
Niverville’s council has been actively working towards establishing a medical taskforce to aid and sustain the success of the new clinic. Residents from the region are being encouraged to join the taskforce along with Dueck and the Burnett husband-and-wife team.
“We need to stay extremely active and proactive to fill the [medical positions] and also replace them as they retire,” says Dueck.
The provincial health minister is a firm advocate of this philosophy.
“We need to have communities step up and say, ‘What can our community do [to add strength to the region]?’” says Goertzen. “Niverville is a great leading example of that. I often [tell] people, ‘If you’re looking for creative ideas or looking for ways to work in partnership, look to Niverville.’”
