Rural P.E.I. community gets a doctor again after 5-year lobbying effort

Residents of a central P.E.I. community are getting a new doctor this year, and it's all thanks to a group of advocates who came together to fight for rural health care. 

Health P.E.I. confirms a new family doctor will be starting a practice in July out of the South Shore Health and Wellness Clinic in Crapaud.

Dr. Meghan Cameron will work there four days per week, and spend one day per week on Lennox Island.

"It's been really wonderful for the community," said Matt MacFarlane, the former co-chair of the advocacy group formed by community members.

"We've been working on getting a doctor to Crapaud specifically to service the patients in the South Shore area for over five years now and it's been a lot of work, a lot of hard work, a lot of effort, a lot of lobbying with the government, a lot of advocacy work."

The region hasn't had a doctor of its own since 2018, when a physician relocated just a year after a long-time doctor in the region closed his practice after 30 years.

"When he left, it was the first time in about 100 years that Crapaud didn't have a family physician working in Crapaud," MacFarlane said of the second doctor.

And that's when the community took action.

If you build it, they will come

They formed a non-profit, Shore Health and Wellness Inc. They raised money to build a clinic in the South Shore Pharmacy. And they pulled the money together to buy equipment — all before they'd found anyone to practise there.

MacFarlane believes those efforts, along with hard work and persistence, were key to finally bringing a doctor back to Crapaud.

"The model of, you know, 'If you build it, they will come' also factored in a bit too," he said.

If we didn't have this clinic out there as infrastructure to turn to, to work in, we would really be behind the game in being able to actually attract anyone to the community.— Matthew MacFarlane

"Because if we didn't have this clinic out there as infrastructure to turn to, to work in, we would really be behind the game in being able to actually attract anyone to the community."

He said the community made a concerted decision not to let an adversarial or aggressive relationship develop with Health P.E.I. or the provincial government.

"We understand the situation with health care in this province, we understand that there's a shortage of nurses and doctors provincewide — countrywide — and we thought we would just stay the course with our approach," he said.

"And ultimately it appears to have paid off," he said, adding that he is "still in a bit of disbelief that it looks like this is happening."

'This is all good news'

Resident Daria Valkenburg credits the work of those community members who didn't stop fighting for access to rural health care.

"I think if there wasn't the advocacy, everybody would be forced to go to either Charlottetown or Summerside, and that puts a lot of strain on people," she said.

"For us, this is all good news … There's such a demand for medical care … so we were delighted to hear that a doctor is coming here."

Health P.E.I. took over the clinic lease in 2021, and two nurse practitioners are currently working there to serve the region's population.

But community members hope a primary-care physician will mean more even people can access care.

"What we're really hoping is [that] people who have been orphans of the primary health care delivery system get attached to the clinic to get a relationship established so they have continuity of care," MacFarlane said.