Doctors' offices bracing for increased patient intake as hospital usage increases

As the province starts to reopen and elective surgeries are given rescheduling dates, a local official says doctor's offices across Windsor-Essex should expect to see an increased patient intake.

Nearly all scheduled surgeries including cancer surgeries, heart operations, organ transplants and hip replacements were postponedunder a provincial order issued in March. Two weeks agothe government said those surgeries, which are often called elective to distinguish them from emergency surgeries,could resume if a hospital meets certain criteria.

But according to the president of the Essex County Medical Society our local branch of the Ontario Medical Associationthat will also come with an increased usage of community services as well.

"We are working together with the hospitals to try and open up primary care practices, family physicians' offices andnurse practitioners' offices to be able to accommodate this increase in hospital usage and also the increase in patients who would be coming to us anyway, " said Dr. Jennifer Bondy, who also works as a family physician for the Amherstburg Family Health Team.

At both of the offices where Bondy works, she's been accepting patients throughout the pandemic. Concerns deemed essential could be treated with in-person visits, but other matters wereaddressed through phone or video calls.

Her goal is to slowly increase the number of in-person visits as hospital usage starts to increase "because an in-person visit really is preferable" but there are challenges that need to be addressed.

"The availability of personal protective equipment (PPE) continues to be a barrier to be able to reopen entirely, so that's something that we have to factor in," said Bondy.

"We'll also have to factor in, of course, individual clinic considerations what the makeup of the clinic is in terms of space and PPE availability."

The end goal, according to Bondy, is to ensure people who need urgent medical attention in Windsor-Essex can access it as similarly as people in other cities throughout the province.

"What we're trying to do as a group is to develop a framework within Essex County and Windsor which is going to be similar to the frameworks all across Ontario ... to ensure that our patients are going to have equitable access to primary care services the same way they would here or London or Hamilton or Waterloo."

If you've needed to visit your family physician or nurse practitioners' office during the pandemic, you might have noticed a few changes including the presence of Plexiglass barriers, physical distancing markers and rules which limit the amount of people inside a waiting room at a time.

According to Bondy, things are going to stay that way for the "foreseeable future."

"We want to ensure that we are minimizing the risk to patients who are coming into the office .... I think a lot of staff members at primary care clinics have been working remotely or the setting has changed and I think that will continue to be the case for the next little while."