There will soon be a new superclinic at the Queen Elizabeth Health Complex.
Quebec's Health Minister Gaetan Barrette made the announcement Friday morning, saying the goal of the expanded clinic is to help patients who do not have family doctors.
The government wants patients to head to superclinics instead of going to hospital emergency rooms.
The Queen Elizabeth superclinic that will open on Monday Sept. 11, 2017 will be the first as part of the MUHC partner clinics network.
It will operate from 8 a.m to 8 p.m., seven days a week, with patients able to get radiology, blood tests, and other medical work done on site instead of having to go from place to place for medical exams. Additional nurses and technicians will help with the extra workload, thanks to personnel subsidies.
“It is the first superclinic that will be opening in the McGill network and in the English speaking community,” said Health Minister Gaetan Barrette, who said it is a good option for people who don’t have their own family doctor.
Dr. Mark Roper, the director of the superclinic, said the purpose is not to provide people with family doctors.
"The access to a family doctor remains a challenge, and especially for our area because we have a lot of patients from other regions registered with our family doctors," said Roper.
"When they ask for their daughters to be part of our practice, we're family doctors, we tend to take them on no matter where they live.
The provincial government has been trying for several years to get citizens to seek medical care in the regions where they live, but tens of thousands of people still come to Montreal for health care instead.
"We certainly need a lot of new doctors. We have to convince the government of that," said Roper.
The medical team said it will try to meet the challenge.
“We have great doctors, we are a great team, great nurses, but certainly it makes more work in our schedule, but it will offer more service which is the goal of that change,” said Dr. Suzanne Angers, a family doctor at the Queen Elizabeth.
The superclinic expects to see 30,000 patients per year and to relieve overcrowding at hospital emergency rooms.