Petition launched to keep nurse-only clinic open in Quebec City

Patients at Clinique SABSAin Quebec City are rallying to keep open thenurse-only co-operative in the St. Roch neighbourhood that has been up and running since 2014.

It's slated for closure on May 1 because itsannual funding of $250,000 from theQuebec Order of Nurses will not be renewed.

The order says a sustainable long-term funding solution has to be found, but the province isn't jumping into close the gap.

"I wasdisheartened," saidGeneviveMartel, one of the patients at the clinic who is speaking publicly in support of it.

When she first came to Quebec City two and a half years ago,Martelsaid she had trouble finding a doctor.She used community clinics.

"You would have to get there before it opened in the morning, to join in the line-up in order to actually get in the waiting room and then wait for another three or four hours," Martel said.

"I couldn't find a doctor. I was on a waiting list.They told me that it could take up to five years."

Marteltold CBC that she'sstill on that waiting list. In the meantime she was taken on as a patient at the nurse-only clinic.

Patient happy with clinic services

Severalnurses work with the clinic, including one full-time nurse practitioner.Martel is seen by one of thenurse practitioners, Isabelle Ttu, who is alsothe clinic's co-founder.

Martel said she isable to get blood work and yearly exams at the clinic. If she needs a prescription that is beyond what Ttuis allowed to prescribe, the nurse practitionerworks with a doctor who is off sitebut still partnered with the clinic.

"Everything works fine," Martel said.

This week, Health MinisterGatanBarettesaid hebelieves the project was a good one. But he stillwants to see nurses integrated into primary-care family-physician groups.

"We need and we want to have a network of service points where the population will have access to the whole thing, not a multiplication of sites where you have a nurse here, a pharmacisthereand doctor there, a physiotherapist at another place. It has to be at one place," he said.

"I will not develop a parallel health care network."

Martel said the clinic is too important to close.

"SABSA was created to respond to a problem, and it's a working solution, and I think they should focus on that."

Ttusaid that the services at the clinic are complimentary to family doctor groups, adding thatthe clinic also serves clients who have a hard time adapting to the structure of the health care system.

Some of the patients at the clinic include people struggling with addiction or suffering from mental health issues.

Before 2014, the clinic was set-up for nurses who volunteered their time to work with people with AIDS andHIV.

The organizers of the clinic have launched a petition to be presented at the National Assembly,in conjunction with the office ofPartiQuebecois MNAAgnsMaltais.