To better serve the changing needs of our most vulnerable populations, VCH – Vancouver Community is changing its Urban Primary Care program. Below you will find some answers to the most frequently asked questions. 

What is happening to VCH’s Primary Care clinics?

We are redesigning our urban primary care services to provide better support those clients who need them most; namely, those with mental health and addiction issues, at-risk youth, and people with chronic disease.

Six existing VCH owned, operated and contracted Primary Care clinics will be impacted by this redesign — Pine, South, Pacific Spirit, Evergreen, Raven Song and Mid-Main. With the exception of Mid-Main, these clinics are stand-alone operations that are embedded into the operations at many of our Community Health Centres.

Primary Care redesign will not result in the closure of any of our Community Health Centres.

How do you plan to improve services?

The redesign will allow us to create a new Primary Care High Needs Stabilization Clinic at the Raven Song Community Health Centre, located at 2450 Ontario Street.

When it opens later this year, the 7-days-a-week, 12-hours-a-day clinic will provide better access hours for clients and improved service from an interdisciplinary team of care providers that will include nurse practitioners and social workers—all in a central location.

The redesign will also result in more physician resources at the well-established inner-city youth clinic services located at Three Bridges Primary Care Clinic in downtown Vancouver, and the East Van Public Health Youth Clinic at the Robert and Lily Lee Family Community Health Centre.

Why are services changing?

We know from our research that we are not connecting with the high needs level of client that we are mandated to serve at our urban primary care sites. Instead, this high needs and unattached patient population is presenting itself in ever-growing numbers to our emergency departments

By establishing a new clinic at Raven Song, VCH can provide our most high needs and complex clients with the health care they need in a stronger and more specialized setting.

Through targeted and centralized Primary Care, VCH can achieve better health for people with complex care needs — such as addiction and chronic disease — while reducing emergency department visits and lengths of hospital stays.

Are you closing existing primary care clinics to enable this change?

To make this clinic the best it can be to serve the patients who need it, VCH is going to carefully shift services currently located at other sites into this central location. We are not closing clinics or cutting services for our complex, high need clients.

Having said that, this Urban Primary Care redesign will see some changes at other VCH locations such as the Pine, South, Pacific Spirit and Evergreen primary care clinics as well as Mid-Main Community Health Centre which provides service under contract to VCH.

As part of this change, some doctors are being given the opportunity to move from our existing contract structure to a fee for service structure that will let them continue to support low need patients at their existing locations. Talks to confirm this are ongoing.

We will keep you updated on the status of all clinics as our discussion with physicians progresses. Decisions made during these discussions will shape future operations of existing primary care clinics.

In the meantime, client care at each clinic will not change.

Will there be job loss as a result of this redesign?

We regret that jobs will be impacted during this redesign, but we are obligated periodically to reconfigure our services in ways that best meet the needs of our clients; in this case, our most vulnerable and highly complex.

We do not know yet which positions will be impacted and will be embarking upon the formal union notification process — as required under the Collective Agreement — shortly. What we can say right now is that we are certain that positions created at the new Raven Song clinic will provide new job opportunities for staff that have been displaced during the redesign process.

We recognize that changes like these can create anxiety for staff and clients. VCH and its Urban Primary Care leadership team are committed to working with employees to support all staff through these changes and ensure that client care remains a priority.

Is this another example of cuts to health care?

No. VCH is transferring patient care dollars into care at the new Raven Song clinic site.

This amalgamation is about providing more robust and fully coordinated care to those who need it.

Clinic consolidations are necessary if we are to achieve our goal of providing longer hours of service and access to more coordinated care for our highly complex clients.

What will happen to the youth services currently offered at Pine?

To more effectively reach Pine’s intended population, the health care services now provided at Pine would be better offered at the new Primary Care High Needs Stabilization Clinic at Raven Song. Vulnerable youth who attend this new clinic will also have direct access to public health, mental health and addictions services.

Additionally, we will be redirecting youth clinic resources across three youth hubs this fall.

• Three Bridges primary care clinic will be receiving additional physician supports for their already established youth clinic
• Raven Song will be adding a youth clinic stream
• East Van Youth Clinic (operated by VCH public health at Robert and Lily Lee Family Community Health Centre) will be receiving additional primary care physician supports as a partnership between primary care and public health.

The VCH public health youth clinic’s and VCH primary care clinic’s follow the same youth mandate. They both support all youth under the age of 25 years.