The Minto-Mapleton Family Health Team provided an update from its Clifford site, and introduced the team’s new physician assistant, at Minto council’s regular meeting Wednesday.
Minto-Mapleton Family Health Team administrator Shirley Borges introduced Jim Tolmie, physician assistant for both the Drayton and Clifford sites.
Tolmie was trained in the Canadian military and began working with the local organization in March. He came here from Cambridge Memorial Hospital, where he worked in a variety of roles, including the emergency department.
“We’re really pleased Jim has joined our family health team,” said Borges. “We really feel we snatched up a good one.”
As a physician assistant, Tolmie works under a doctor’s supervision. His role includes conducting patient interviews and taking histories, conducting physical exams, counseling patients on preventative care and performing controlled acts as delegated by a physician.
“I feel that I really fit in well with the team,” Tolmie said. “They’ve really welcomed me.”
According to the Minto-Mapleton Family Health Team, the physician assistant position was announced in 2006 and is being introduced into the provincial health-care system through demonstration projects. The local FHT received funding for one of only 20 physician assistant positions in the province.
The project will be reviewed after two years.
“We hope it leads to ongoing funding,” said Borges. “It’s important to make it a success.”
Borges also updated council members on the Clifford site activities. The nurse practitioner there has a full roster of 600 patients, three area doctors visit the site regularly and social workers, a dietitian, health promoter and pharmacist also provide services there. Patients can take advantage of the chronic pain self-management group classes and the memory clinic — for patients concerned with memory loss — offered there.
Over the last year, said Borges, video-conferencing equipment was installed at the clinic. This brings specialty services to rural patients. For example, a geriatric psychiatrist from Hamilton can assess a patient at the Clifford site through video-conferencing.
“You should be very proud of it,” said Borges.
For more information on the Minto-Mapleton Family Health Team, visit the website at www.mmfht.ca or call the Clifford office at 519-327-4777.