First pharmacist-led clinic to open in Barrhead

BARRHEAD - Barrhead is getting its first pharmacist-led walk-in clinic.

Later this week, Barrhead Pharmacy and Homehealth Clinic will open its doors in the old Barrhead Medical Centre building on 51st Street.

Since 2007, Alberta pharmacists have been able to prescribe medication, administer injections, and, when appropriate, assess patients for minor illnesses and ailments.

However, pharmacists have only recently, starting post-pandemic, taken advantage of those abilities through pharmacist-led walk-in clinics, mostly in larger urban centres.

Puneet Mahajan, an Edmonton-based businessman with a degree in pharmacy and a PhD in medicine, owns several pharmacies in Edmonton, including one that provides pharmacist-led clinic services.

Before opening his businesses, Mahajan said he worked as a healthcare consultant.

He said he was looking for ways to optimize healthcare and the best models in the cities when he realized some of the same models or solutions would work in rural communities.

Initially, Mahajan was looking for a building in Swan Hills to open his clinic, but when the Barrhead real estate agent learned about his background and what he was planning, he suggested that the Barrhead Medical Centre would be a perfect fit for his plans.

"It is a matter of math," he said.

In his initial research, Mahajan learned that there is an average six to eight weeks wait for a patient to see their family doctor, assuming they have one.

"That's not good," he said.

Typically, he said, the patient-doctor ratio for a general practitioner (GP) is one for every 1,000 people.

The number of family doctors in the community has fluctuated dramatically in recent years. Currently, about 10 GPs operate out of Barrhead's three medical clinics.

To simplify the math, Mahajan used six GPs who work an average of four days a week and see 20 patients a day.

"That means [a physician] can see 4,160 patients a year. There is something fundamentally wrong when we can't accommodate 1,100 patients [per GP] in a year," saying on average, patients see their GP four times a year.

In addition to the pharmacist-led clinic, Mahajan added they've recently completed extensive renovations to the building, allowing the present slate of three physicians to see 60 to 90 patients a day.

Two of the doctors, Ogechukwu Graham Nwobe and Amarachi Acholonu-Nwobe, will soon leave to start their own independent practice in April.

He also noted that giving area residents another option when they need to see a healthcare professional for minor or chronic conditions alleviates the stress on all the doctors, shortens their wait times, saves the healthcare system money, and improves patient outcomes.

Mahajan added that when someone cannot see their regular healthcare provider, they are often forced to go to the emergency room, where they wait several hours to be seen.

"What we provide is accessibility when your physician is not available; we can help you and then refer you back to your own physician, telling them what we did and allowing them to follow up," he said. We live in a developed country, and we should have accessible healthcare. My pledge to the town and county is to help provide that."

Mahajan is also confident that he has found the right team to help provide this new service to the community.

He said the team of three is led by long-time Barrhead pharmacist Rita Lyster.

"Rita has been living and practising in Barrhead for 42 years. She [and pharmacist Calvin Warnock, who owned his own pharmacy for over 30 years] can treat a lot of minor ailments like asthma, diabetes, COPD, high blood pressure and much more," Mahajan said, adding the clinic will also offer a wide range of women's health services.

Barry Kerton, TownandCountryToday.com