Greater Napanee Mayor Terry Richardson, Dr. Giancarlo Pukas, and Dr. Kim Morrison at the Napanee Health Home announcing Dr. Pukas’s arrival in Napanee on Thursday, Jul. 18, 2024. Photo by Cris Vilela/Kingstonist.
The smiles on the faces of Greater Napanee Mayor Terry Richardson and Dr. Kim Morrison as they welcomed Dr. Giancarlo Pukas to Napanee said it all – the addition of a new family physician to the municipality is something to celebrate.
Richardson and Morrison announced the new-to-Napanee physician at a media event on Thursday, Jul. 18, 2024, held at Napanee Health Home, located at Lennox and Addington General Hospital’s Lenadco Complex on Bridge Street West. As previously reported, the Napanee Health Home is part of the Frontenac, Lennox and Addington Ontario Health Team (FLA OHT).
“We are super excited to be introducing our newest physician, Dr. Giancarlo Pukas. He comes to us from Queen’s and he is joining the Greater Napanee Health Home, which… is our primary care centre for the community,” said Dr. Kim Morrison, Executive Lead of the FLA OHT.
“Our goal is to attach every resident in Greater Napanee to a primary care team through the Greater Napanee Health Home.”
In February, Greater Napanee announced Dr. Victoria Candy would be setting up shop in the town. The addition of Dr. Pukas equates to two physicians recruited to Greater Napanee so far in 2024, Morrison pointed out.
“So, we’re super confident that our ability, through partnership and collaboration with the town, the hospital (Lennox and Addington General Hospital), and Kingston Community Health Centres, that the group of family physicians in town is creating a model that will meet not only the needs of the people in our community for access to primary care, but for the providers who provide that care to create a space where people want to come and work and do the work that they’re trained to do,” she expressed.
Asked what the remaining need for primary care is in Greater Napanee, Morrison explained that the FLA OTH believes there are approximately 5,000 unattached patients within their boundaries. As such, Morrison said, the team believes they need three or four more physicians and nurse practitioners (NPs).
“We work in a collaborative model, and it’s the team-based aspect that really creates capacity, so it’s having a backbone for administrative and infrastructure, and IT support… it’s about working with allied health providers, such as nurses, social workers, physiotherapists, respiratory therapists, so that everybody can work at the top of their scope of practice,” Morrison explained.
“And then having a model where the family physicians and nurse practitioners work together, each at the top of their scope of practice… Creating the most capacity to provide primary care services that we can.”
Greater Napanee isn’t the only area heavily recruiting NPs and family doctors currently. In fact, most jurisdictions in Ontario are experiencing the same thing. Morrison pointed to the FLA OHT and the Napanee Health Home as the reason Greater Napanee is making strides in this area, saying what differentiates their area and is the key to its success is “multipronged.”
“The first [prong] is partnerships. Primary care doctors and nurse practitioners alone cannot do this. This isn’t just a primary care problem to solve. So, it takes collaboration from across partners – traditional and non-traditional health sector partners,” said Morrison, pointing to municipalities, hospitals, and community paramedics as examples of the “non-traditional health sector”.
“We’re all in on trying to ensure that people get the access to the care that they need. I think creating models of care that people want to come and work in, such as team-based care, is a significant benefit of what we’re doing here.”
Morrison said that, through the Ontario Health Team, this is happening in other parts of the region.
“You will hear shortly about a new [Health] Home in Kingston that’s working in a very similar model with additional provincial funding to start it up to attach people in parts of Kingston. The CDK Health Home this spring attached almost 4,000 new patients to a primary care team through their collaborative efforts, and there’s another Health Home in the east end of Kingston doing similar work,” she shared.
“We in the OHT strongly believe that it’s a model of care and the collaboration that will make this region different, but it’s also scalable and spreadable – without additional resources, like funding – to other parts of the province.”
But, as with many new ideas, the best place to start is at home, Morrison expressed.
“Groups of agencies across the province are all collaborating on these ideas, and we’re really hopeful to be able to make a big difference for the people of Ontario. But we’re starting with people in Greater Napanee,” she said.
Emphasizing its success, it was the model Morrison referred to that Dr. Pukas pointed to as what drew him to his new position. Pukas, who grew up in Richmond Hill before completing his undergraduate studies in health sciences at McMaster, immediately followed those studies with residencies in Ottawa and Kingston. He just completed two years in family medicine through Queen’s and told reporters that he knew “pretty early on” that he wanted to work in family medicine.
“I really liked the getting to follow patients over time getting to build those relationships rather than just meeting patients once and then sending them off,” said Pukas.
“Building those strong bonds is really important to me and I appreciate that and you’re just a better doctor when you know [your patients] in and out that way… I really liked that in family medicine offers, being able to do a variety of things, especially working in a smaller community.”
It was then Pukas turned his focus to the FLA OTH model, noting that in looking into where he wanted to serve as a physician, hearing about the new opportunity with Napanee Health Home “sounded really, really interesting.”
“I like the model of having allied health there to support you, and I knew several colleagues, residents that graduated with me, that worked in the community here and [had] nothing but stellar reviews of all the team here, so I knew I’d be really supported.
In terms of what he plans to see and do in the coming weeks and months, Pukas said “as I’m taking on new patients, things will be a bit of a transition process, but hopefully, wait times won’t be as long once things settle down and I can see patients when they need, rather than… for example, hearing that one of my senior patients had to go to emerg just just to get pills.”
“No one should have to do that, especially a senior… So, [I’m] wanting to prevent those things, make sure that health care is accessible to my patients, that I’m doing a good job, and just making sure I’m constantly learning.”
Knowing that readers will be interested to know how they might be able to end up on Dr. Pukas’s roster, Kingstonist asked Dr. Morrison for her insights.
“So the process, or rostering, is all, at the moment, through Health Care Connect, so you can register online, you can register by phoning them, you call Health Care Connect, say I have an unattached patient, they take all your information, and we are pulling lots of people off that list now every week, and we’ll continue to do that as we build our Greater Napanee Health Home,” she said.
Earlier this year, CDK Family Medicine in Kingston held open rostering for the members of the public currently without primary care. This resulted in thousands of people lining up over days in Kingston, with CDK pointing to significant problems in the rostering program – Health Care Connect – as the reason for holding the open rostering. So what changes have occurred to make that system better?
“Health Care Connect is that provincial program. Locally, we’re working really closely with our health care connectors to do the absolute best job that they can. There are limitations to the program, it’s not always easy for patients, it’s not always easy for providers, but it is the best system that we’ve got right now. And we’re working hand-in-hand with them to make it the best that it can be, so it can be our large rostering process,” Morrison said.
One of the objectives of the OHTs, Morrison said, is to work with Health Care Connect to improve that system.
“And we’re trying to make it the best that we can.”
For his part, Mayor Richardson spoke to the success Greater Napanee is having in terms of family doctor recruitment.
“We’re so grateful,” he said, noting that it was many months ago when Dr. Morrison “started to float the idea” of what is now the Napanee Health Home.
“It might have even been prior to me being mayor, I think I might have been just a council member, and then I heard [Dr. Morrison’s plan] and I thought, ‘you know what, that’s gonna work. You know, it’s one of those things where you just love that as soon as you hear because it’s a system I think is going to work.”
He expressed that the success of the model will ultimately allow Napanee to draw more people to it, both residents and businesses. People don’t want to move to a place where they’re unable to find a physician, he said, but if the model continues in its current trajectory, people thinking about moving to Napanee are going to know they have access to primary health care.
“So for us, it’s just absolutely… I’m doing cartwheels! Because it’s [been] a very short period of time, [and] you can start to see the results,” the mayor said.
For more information on Health Care Connect or to register, visit the provincial government’s guide to securing a family physician.
Greater Napanee welcomes new family physician
