Village Medical Centre opens to patients Monday

With the furniture, equipment, computers and supplies scheduled to arrive Thursday morning, the Niagara North Family Health Team will be welcoming its first patients Monday to the new medical centre in The Village.

Physicians Iram Ahmed, Tim Bastedo, Karen Berti, Samreen Malik and Pratik Kalani gathered with administrators, nurse practitioners, town council members and others Tuesday afternoon inside the state-of-the-art facility to cut the ribbon for the official opening of the centre, which also includes a bright, modern new space to house LifeLabs.

Berti escorted The Local through a tour of the 8,000-square-foot building. The facility is divided into two wings, accessed through a central waiting room immediately upon entering.

While the five doctors, who are all moving from the old Niagara-on-the-Lake hospital, will operate out of the north side of the building, the south wing will host diabetes educators, a pharmacist, mental health professionals, social workers, nurse educators, a chiropodist, an occupational therapist and three nurse practitioners. Each wing has its own reception station.

Unlike the current hospital site, there are no stairs to navigate, and a walk along a hallway to an elevator is unnecessary as the new centre is all on one floor, level with the parking lot.

“That was very important from an accessibility perspective,” said Berti. “And for myself, it’s the first time in about 25 years that I will be above ground. I’ll actually see sunlight. And it’s a bigger space, a better set-up. It’s a perfect size.”

There are 10 examination rooms for the doctors to use plus two nurse’s rooms. That is a 33 per cent increase from the eight rooms in total that are currently being shared at the old hospital. Each exam room is spacious and bright, with windows looking out at the surrounding Village.

In the south wing, the nurse practitioners will for the first time have an office separate from their exam rooms. They will be moving in from the Niagara Medical Centre, where there is no separate office space for them outside of their examination rooms.

“That came out of COVID,” explained the health team’s executive director Mary Keith. “It allows for sanitation between patients. Our diabetic team (dieticians and nurses) are now able to provide holistic care together. And our multi-use space for mental health services has a moveable wall to facilitate groups.”

There was some necessary logistical planning that has gone into moving from one medical centre to another.

Berti explained that there are very few paper records anymore, so that was not an issue. She was quite positive that everything will be ready to go Monday from an information technology perspective.

And she added that a team effort was necessary for other items.

“Exam tables and other things are coming over with a moving company,” Berti pointed out. “Certain chemicals, though, we have to be careful with. With liquid nitrogen, we made sure we used that all up so we didn’t have to move it. The moving company won’t bring oxygen cylinders, so our colleagues will bring those over themselves.”

Developer John Hawley seemed both happy and relieved that the medical centre is opening next week after the event had been pushed back twice in 2022.

“We had some troubles getting out of the gate with approvals,” Hawley said Tuesday. “But the town helped us work through that. Everyone wanted to see this get done. A lot of the delays were caused by the pandemic. And of course, we are over budget because of the pandemic, too.”

Hawley thanked the homeowners in The Village as well as the tenants in the commercial plaza next to the medical centre for their patience and cooperation. He also expressed gratitude to NOTL councillors from the last 10 years for their support of the project.

In his address, Deputy Lord Mayor Erwin Wiens made special mention of current councillor Sandra O’Connor for her influence in getting the project pushed forward.

“Health care as an infrastructure, a town needs that,” added O’Connor. “Upgrading, as we’ve done here, is very important to the health and well-being of the town. It’s very important that we continue to push for the infrastructure here to service everyone.”

“It’s going to be very nice to be within a community atmosphere,” Berti told The Local. “Although I have very much enjoyed being at the hospital, it is a very high tourist area. Parking can be an issue there. We won’t notice that here. This is a move in the right direction for everybody.”

And the space in Virgil vacated by members of the health team leaves room for new doctors to set up practices in NOTL in the future. As well, the added space offered in The Village may offer other future opportunities for expanded health care in town.“We would be happy to bring in more people to collaborate,” explained Berti. “Maybe some specialist care on certain days of the week. But right now we just have to figure out how we fit in, how our workflow goes.”

She added, “We need more doctors in the area. It’s certainly a necessity. That will be our next five-year plan, how we go about recruiting more people into our two health care spaces. Right now, though, we’ll take some time to enjoy what we have.”