VICTORIA -- A new urgent and primary care centre (UPCC) will be coming to the Esquimalt area next year.
UPCC’s are health care centres that focus on providing medical services for urgent needs that require treatment within 12 to 24 hours, like sprains, minor cuts or burns, urinary problems or ear infections.
The health-care centres can also help connect patients with other primary care centres, if they lack a consistent family doctor.
Esquimalt’s new urgent and primary care centre will be staffed with general practitioners, nurses, nurse practitioners and health clinicians.
People will be able to visit the UPCC through scheduled appointments or drop ins.
“This is great news for the community and the capital region as-a-whole,” said Mitzi Dean, MLA for Esquimalt-Metchosin in a release Friday.
“Not only will this urgent and primary care centre bring much-needed services to people in Esquimalt, but it will also help residents to be connected to a consistent primary care provider closer to home,” she said.
The health-care centre is expected to open in late spring 2021.
The Esquimalt UPCC is the fourth urgent and primary care centre to open on Vancouver Island.
The first opened in Langford in 2018, the second opened in Nanaimo in 2019 and the third opened in in Victoria in April.
Since April, the Victoria UPCC has served over more than 2,350 patients.
“The urgent and primary care centre planned for Esquimalt will have a positive impact on all those living in the community and surrounding area who are looking for local, same-day access to health-care services,” said Leah Hollins, board chair for Island Health.
“It will mean a team of health professionals working together at one location to provide same-day care and, for those who do not have a care provider, facilitate connections to primary care to better support their immediate and long-term care needs,” she said.
