Doctor leaves Wellington after losing office space

The mayor of Wellington, P.E.I., says nearly two months after the community's only doctor stopped seeing patients there, residents are impatiently waiting for Health PEI to fill the void. 

For nearly a decade, a Summerside-based doctor saw patients a half day per week from an office at La coopérative Le Chez-Nous Ltée​, a long-term care facility in the community. But the doctor stopped seeing patients there in November, when the facility decided to take over the space.

"People do hope some service can be restored, so that they don't have to travel to Summerside for doctor visits," said Wellington Mayor Alcide Bernard.

"It's important that we keep the service locally."

Management of Chez-Nous said the decision to take over the office space being used by the doctor was "strictly a business decision."

"The space was only being used half a day a week. There was a long waiting list, and an opportunity to make it more resident rooms," said facility manager Edgar Arsenault. About a dozen of the doctor's patients are residents at the facility. 

Won't return to Wellington

The doctor declined to do an interview, but their office confirmed the Wellington patients are now travelling to the Summerside office, and that even if a new location is found in Wellington the doctor won't be returning to the community. 

Bernard said while that 20-minute drive may not be a big deal for most patients, it hurts the community. 

"We have a pharmacy in the area. And if there's no doctor at all working in the area, there's a big chance people would take their prescription out in Summerside," he said.

"There's important services connected to that, so we think it's very important that we have doctor services in the area."

Search is now on

P.E.I. Health Minister James Aylward said Thursday his department has identified another space in Wellington where a doctor could work — the challenge is finding that person. 

"We're actively speaking with other physicians to see if someone else might be willing to step up and provide this service half a day, one day a week."

Liberal MLA for Evangeline-Miscouche Sonny Gallant said while he understands recruiting doctors is a challenge, his constituents are getting impatient. 

"Speaking to the people in the community, they'd like the service provided as soon as we can," said Gallant. 

"And of course it would be wonderful tomorrow to have a new doctor come up that's bilingual. But if we can't do that, if we could at least have a doctor or nurse practitioner to look after the residents until we can find someone."

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