CL Medical Clinic in Cold Lake is set to open its doors on Saturdays to see what the demand and capacity is like for additional clinic hours.
Chair of the CL Medical Clinic board and City Councillor, Chris Vining said there will be staffing at the site for certain hours on Saturdays, beginning with Oct. 10, as part of a pilot project to allow doctors to schedule appointments on weekends.
“This will give doctors a chance to strengthen their practice through additional billable hours while also measuring the demand for clinic hours outside of the regular work week,” Vining stated.
In the beginning, officials said there will be no set time for the Saturday clinic hours. Instead, certain Saturday times will be made available to patients depending on their doctors’ availability. After observing the demand during the pilot project, the clinic will set its Saturday hours, and could reach a point of full-day hours on Saturdays.
Officials said the intention would be to keep the Saturday bookings for simple and straight forward appointments, like a prescription refill.
Additionally, the pilot could provide an opportunity for staff and physicians to explore weekend walk-in services, for those without an appointment.
“At this point, we do not know if the doctors will have the availability to hold enough Saturday hours to warrant us staying open, or how patients will respond to the increase in availability,” Vining said.
“There are a lot of variables at play, and so a pilot project is the best means of testing the waters and seeing what the public wants, and how we can best respond with the staff and doctors we currently have.”
CL Medical Clinic is a municipally controlled corporations and owns and operates the medical clinic at 2504 Glacier Gate in Cold Lake North.
The corporation is run by a board comprised of city councillors and members at large appointed by Cold Lake City Council.
