North End Community Health Centre set to open in new location
After a two year search — and a battle with a failing, leaky roof — the North End Community Health Centre's primary care site is ready to open in its new home in Major General Donald J. MacDonald building, just steps from its former home.
The clinic is leasing two floors of the building doubling the square footage of the centre's old location.
It has fourteen clinic rooms for seeing patients, the old facility only had seven clinic rooms, according to the centre's executive director Dr. Rod Wilson.
There was fear in April of last year that the roof of the old primary care site might collapse, at the time Wilson said the roof was beyond patching and often leaked. He said those worries are a thing of the past.
"Now going forward any funding and donations and fundraising we can do we can invest in programs and services I don't have to worry about the plumbers, the roof, the building's been really well maintained," said Wilson.
The primary care site's move is the first of three phases. The mobile outreach street health team and dental clinic will follow later this summer, with everything under one roof by September.
"Yes, we're in an office building but we're still here, and we really wanted to emphasize that this is not just a corporate office, this is actually a community space," said Wilson.
That's why the centre is bringing a piece of home with it — a painting of its old location on 2165 Gottingen St. will adorn a wall in the new waiting room.
Clinic needed more space
The centre bought the old building in the 1980s when it had a team of 12. It now has 48 staff members and 5,000 registered patients.
The old building has been sold, although Wilson said the new buyer isn't being named yet.
"It's a little bit of giving up your ownership and your house, but I think most of us are being practical that if you're going to raise money or provide services, you want to invest it in services," he said.
The centre now has a 10-year lease with the option to renew for five years with the Nova Scotia Health Authority for two floors in the Major General Donald J. MacDonald building.
Even though the centre now pays rent, Wilson said its operating costs are about the same since the centre doesn't have to worry about the costs of maintaining the building.
Dr. Anne Houstoun, a family physician at the centre for over 30 years, said the centre's new collaborative room means more opportunity to teach medical residents.
'Fresh, new' look
For the past six weeks, Tina Bishop has been going through a basement of files and transferring most of them to a digital database.
The medical receptionist, who's been with the centre for more than 20 years, said the hard work will pay off when patients see the new space this week.
"It's just fresh, new. The patients are going to love it. They're going to come in, they're going to be surprised and they're going to say, 'Now this looks like a doctors office,'" said Bishop.
