Town of Souris welcomes new family doctor

The Town of Souris has welcomed a new family doctor, bringing much-needed health-care access to the eastern P.E.I. community, local officials say.

Dr. Craig Campbell, who was born and raised in Charlottetown before training in Newfoundland, has opened a practice in Souris. That brings to four the total number of doctors in the town of about 1,100, according to Health P.E.I.

Mayor Jo-Anne Dunphy said the new doctor is a significant addition, especially given the town's aging population and the challenges of travelling to the Kings County Memorial Hospital in Three Rivers.

"It's difficult for them to have someone take them down to outpatients or the emergency room in Montague, if there's an emergency. It's difficult if their doctor's in Montague. It's not always easy for anybody to get there, weather-wise or during workdays," Dunphy told CBC News.

The need for local medical care has become even more pressing with the temporary reduction of services at Kings County Memorial, she said.

Health P.E.I. has decided to stop offering Saturday hours at the emergency department at the Montague hospital due to a staffing shortage until at least April. This means residents of eastern P.E.I. now have to travel about 45 minutes to Charlottetown for emergency care on Saturdays.

Dunphy said Campbell and his wife decided to move to Souris after he completed his medical training there.

While Campbell does not yet have his full patient panel established, he will be taking on patients from the provincial registry and is expected to reach his full patient capacity within a few weeks, the mayor said.

High demand

At a recent standing committee meeting, Souris-Elmira MLA Robin Croucher spoke about the new doctor with Health P.E.I. CEO Melanie Fraser.

Croucher noted that many Souris residents with significant health concerns are on the patient registry but don't have a family doctor. He said he's been getting many questions from them about how to become patients of the new doctor.

"They're desperate, right, and have been desperate for a while," he said.

In response, Fraser said it's not ideal to overwhelm new doctors establishing their practices with a flood of requests from people seeking a family physician. She said in acute or emergent situations, Islanders could "escalate to Health P.E.I." rather than directly contacting the new doctor.

"Escalating and using Health P.E.I. to help facilitate those conversations also potentially reduces the burden on that new physician as they're starting up," said the CEO.

"We want them to be able to onboard their practice successfully and in a way that's workable for them, because we want to retain them and we want them to have a healthy long-term practice."