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Dr. Paul Piechota (left), patient Lynn Eyton-Jones and nurse Deborah Pryse. Natasha Fillion, The Gazette
Private clinic a lifesaver for some
Focus of Access Med is on preventative care
Ian Howarth
The Gazette
Wednesday, August 20, 2008
Dr. Paul Piechota (left), patient Lynn Eyton-Jones and nurse Deborah Pryse. Natasha Fillion, The Gazette
Gary Wand considers himself lucky to be alive – and he credits the recently opened Access Med Private Healthcare Centre for saving his life.
Access Med, which opened in Kirkland last November, is the West Island’s only private preventative health-care clinic and is staffed by three family physicians, a specialist and two nurses.
Wand, a 55-year-old CEO of his own swim apparel company, one day found himself unable to do even the most simple of tasks without becoming exhausted.
Distressed, he phoned his wife, who promptly drove him to the Access Med offices where he was seen immediately by his physician, Paul Piechota.
A quick examination and a phone call from the clinic’s part-time cardiologist, and Wand was on his way to the Lakeshore General Hospital. After a battery of tests and the discovery of blockage in his coronary arteries, he was transferred to the Jewish General, where he underwent an angioplasty the next day.
“It (the heart problem) seems to have come out of nowhere. I knew something was wrong,” said Wand, an active walker and non-smoker. “They took me right away. My GP alerting the hospital speeded things up. I’m convinced they have a lot to do with me being here today.”
Wand is one of thousands of Quebecers who have availed themselves of private health-care facilities, a growing phenomenon aided by a 2005 Supreme Court of Canada ruling in favour of the use of private insurance for services available under Quebec’s health-care plan.
Across Canada, Quebec leads the way in the volume of doctors who have opted out of medicare.
Piechota is one of the three family practitioners at Access Med, and for him, the decision to go private was not taken lightly.
A GP with 18 years of experience, he left a very busy practice with almost 3,500 patients on the West Island concentrating on gerontological care to become one of the founders of Access Med.
“I felt I just didn’t have the time to provide quality care. There was such a high volume of patients that it compromised the quality of care I was able to give,” he explained.
With an emphasis on preventive health care, Piechota is down to a more manageable 800 patients, some of whom followed him to his new practice, others who bought into the services offered by Access Med. The private clinic offers a number of health-care options and packages that range from $800-$1,500, some of which is covered by private insurance.
With a nurse Piechota didn’t have in his former practice, much of the patient triage is done prior to actually seeing the physician.
“I have more time per patient now – up to 45 minutes – including nursing time,” he said. “Before, I was working nights at home and my quality of life was affected. At the end of the day, I’m not feeling as pressured,” the father of two said.
And though Piechota and endocrinologist François Gilbert, who went private three years ago, are happier with their current working conditions, neither will say that private medical care is the panacea to the problems that are inherent to the public system.
“I’m not saying it’s the solution to the public health-care system,” Gilbert said. “But our primary concern really is patient satisfaction and I think going private, we are able to achieve that.”
President and director-general of the Collège des médecins du Québec, Yves Lamontagne, hastens to point out that only 190 of Quebec’s 19,000 doctors have opted out of medicare. But he does have concerns about Quebec’s
future and its doctors.
“We have a shortage of family doctors and specialists in pathology, neurosurgery and immuno-oncology,” he said. “We need another 800 to 1,000 GPs. We’re not the only province with this problem.”
Lamontagne is optimistic that the Collége is on the right track in graduating new doctors – 800 will be graduating next year, he said – and attracting doctors from other countries.
“Still,” he said. “We can’t have two types of medical doctors.”