Winkler clinic celebrates year of growth with added staff and space
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- Published on Thursday, February 25, 2016
By Steven Sukkau
The last year saw more space and staff for the C.W. Wiebe Medical Clinic, which recently opened a nearly 4,000 sq. ft. addition.
“It’s been a really great addition, it’s opened up some room, we were getting a little tight,” Clinic Administrator Jim Neufeld says.
Along with expanded space at Northwest end of the ALG Professional Centre, the clinic has been able to add more staff as well.
“We were fortunate to add four new physicians to our group this year so space was needed,” Neufeld says. “We’ve got everybody here and working, it was a good year.”
The development of the clinic and health care services in the region continues, Neufeld says, “it hasn’t really stopped at any given time, and we still have many needs in the area.”
One of the needs continues to be family doctors. Neufeld says they attached 4,000 patients to primary care providers in the last two years, but says it’s difficult to know exactly how many people are looking for a family doctor.
“I think we’ve been able to make a significant dent in the number of people looking in the area,” Neufeld says, adding anyone looking for a primary care provider can connect with the Family Doctor Finder Program.
The Winkler clinic has grown considerably since opening in 2001. Starting with 12,375 sq. ft in 2001 with 11 full time physicians, three part time physicians, two RN’s and 29 support staff.
Since then, the clinic has continued to expand into more space in the ALG centre, with the addition of a South Clinic on the other end of the building in 2009. Along with the surgical services expansion in 2015, by next year Neufeld says the C.W. Wiebe Medical Clinic will have approximately 24,000 sq. ft, 36 full-time physicians, six part time physicians, 71 support staff and a number of full time specialists including a dietician, psychologist and chronic disease nurse.
