While many in Kingston’s east end were excited to see the news that Greenwood Medical Centre would be establishing a local Health Home and aiming to roster approximately 1000 new patients, there were some met with news last week that they would no longer be eligible for service at the clinic.
Last Wednesday, Greenwood Medical Centre announced they’d be holding a rostering event on Saturday August 17 in an aim to attach up to 600 people with a primary care provider.
The rostering event established certain geographic boundaries that potential clients must fall within, with Frontenac, Lennox & Addington Ontario Health Team (FLA OHT) stating the goal is to meet the needs of specific areas with Health Homes available where they live.
But a number of longtime patients at the clinic were met with bad news just days later, as they were informed their primary care provider, Dr. Curry, was leaving Greenwood Medical Centre, and they would not be eligible for one of the approximately 1000 available rostering spots due to living outside of the boundary.
In a statement, Greenwood Medical Centre said work to recruit a new family doctor in place of Dr. Curry has been unsuccessful so far, and said the medical centre understands the anxiety it has caused patients who now see themselves as unattached to a primary care provider.
They said FLA OHT was already committed to a plan of establishing regional Health Homes when they found out about his departure.
“Prior to the announcement of this family doctor’s departure, scheduled for 2025, Greenwood Medical Clinic was already in the process of transitioning to a regional Health Home serving a specific geographic area,” the statement reads.
“This shift is part of a broader effort to enhance access to primary care across the region, ensuring that all residents receive comprehensive, coordinated care close to home.”
The clinic says they will actively work to avoid any disruption to now former patients and will help to try to find them a provider, saying they are trying to see if these patients can be connected with other regional Health Homes.
But so far, those patients have been given no clarity on the situation and only know that they are now set to join the line of Ontarians who are also seeking a primary care provider.
Karen Cowtan is a patient of Dr. Curry who received a letter on Saturday informing that she and her husband would not have a family doctor at the clinic as of January 2025, and that there were no doctors at the clinic who would be accepting patients outside of the established catchment area.
Those receiving the letter were urged to look for a new family doctor immediately, but fear they’ll now be at the back of the line.
Cowtan says she was glad to see the rostering expansion to help other people in the community, but doesn’t understand why it needs to come at the expense of patients who will now be scrambling to find other options.
“Only days later, an unknown number of patients are receiving a gut wrenching letter noting that the family physician you had is not longer practicing and that Greenwood Medical will not take on these patients as they do not live in the ‘Catchment’,” Cowtan said.
“Greenwood Medical is claiming they are helping the primary care physician crisis by taking on 1000 new patients but they are also contributing to it by discharging their current ones!”
Others have reached out saying they too were told they’d be losing their primary care provider, however Greenwood Medical Centre has not confirmed exactly how many have lost access to their family doctor.
Greenwood is at this time not considering keeping these patients on their roster as they, with the support of FLA OHT, look to focus on establishing a regionally focused Health Home.
FLA OHT says however that they are building additional regional Health Homes, but at this time those who are losing access to Greenwood as of January don’t know if there will be anything available to them where they live.
Soon-to-be former patients said they’ve received no further follow up from Greenwood.
