Photo by Prairie Mountain Health

By spring of 2014, some residents of the region may be boarding a bus in order to get an X-ray. Kathy McPhail, who is Chief Executive Officer for Southern Health-Sante Sud says the regional health authority is set to become only the second RHA in the province to operate a mobile clinic in the form of a bus.

"This is a real nifty idea," says McPhail, who notes this is two and a half years in the making.

McPhail says the mobile clinic will be staffed by nurse practitioners and primary care nurses. It will have diagnostic equipment, meaning limited lab tests will be possible as well as X-rays.

"So you're not going to get a CT scan or an MRI on this bus," jokes McPhail. "It's not like some of the ones you hear about in North Dakota."

Meetings will begin in January, exploring which communities might benefit most from such a clinic. McPhail says obvious candidates would include the RM of Piney, Dominion City and the area north of Gladstone. She adds because of how remote some of these areas are, there will probably not be real time connectivity even though the bus will keep an electronic medical record. 

McPhail says the purpose is to bring the bus to residents who would otherwise have to travel great distances for the service. Communities with hospitals or those with a good supply of physicians will probably never see the bus. McPhail says that means the only reason you may ever see the bus in places like Steinbach, Portage or Morden is if it's traveling from one community to another or the unit is being housed (which, by the way requires space of approximately sixty feet by forty feet).

The CEO says the funding is available through an initiative under Manitoba Health to increase access to a family physician or primary care provider. 

McPhail says they're still working out all of the logistics, including hours of operation. The only other mobile clinic in Manitoba belongs to Prairie Mountain Health.