A new wellness clinic has opened up in Lakefield for Peterborough city and county residents who currently do not have a family doctor and there’s also a special clinic focused on screening women for potentially serious health issues.
Happening at the Morton Community Healthcare Centre, the women’s clinics are called Women’s Wellness. The focus is to help women catch cervical cancer early.
“It was great. I got looked after the way I should have been looked after, which is really hard to find in this area,” said patient Emina McNeil, after her second visit to the Women’s Wellness clinic.
According to McNeil, she has been looking for a new family doctor since hers left the area in November.
“I had signed up with a new family doctor and I was sick over the holidays,” McNeil recounted, “and she was so booked that I could not get in to see her, so I ended up coming here and they took me right away.”
The wellness clinic serves patients in Peterborough County, as well as people who are are visiting the area who don’t have a family doctor or nurse practitioner.
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“The actual need for family doctors and nurse practitioners is a lot more than what the statistics show. We’re anticipating that there’s going to be quite a few doctors around the same age retiring over the next few years,” said nurse practitioner Lorie Dunford.
On Tuesdays, the clinic offers services including pap smears, screening for colorectal and cervical cancer and arranging mammogram appointments. On Thursdays, it offers a blood pressure clinic.
“Our clinic is such that I give care and I give preventative full care until a doctor becomes available,” said Dunford.
The clinic is open from 9 a.m. until 5 p.m., and appointments can be booked by calling the PFHT clinic directly, or at the Peterborough location at the virtual health care clinic.