The downtown nurse practitioner clinic which was shut down in late December due to a downtown fire is back in business.
Jaymie- Lynn Blanchard, Nurse Practitioner and Clinic Director at the North Bay Nurse Practitioner-Led Clinic says their downtown clinic re-opened in mid-October.
"It has been kind of a long haul, December 20 was when the fire was so from then until the middle of October we had staff initially working all out of our West Ferris site but with COVID-19 we also had a lot of staff working from home to minimize the number of people in the office so our team has worked very, very hard to get back to our downtown site and we are grateful to be back for sure," Blanchard told CKAT.
See related: Major downtown fire
Blanchard says after the blaze, the staff moved all under one roof at their Lakeshore Drive location with some staff working from home to minimize the number of people in their office.
Both clinic locations are closely following pandemic protocols including wearing a mask, frequent handwashing, prescheduled appointments that allow for passive and active screening for COVID-19 symptoms, and using virtual care for all appointments that do not require an in-person visit.
"We are offering virtual care, phone call appointments, video call appointments; anyone we can see without actually seeing in person if it is appropriate to do so," she said.
Blanchard notes that the downtown clinic added three new nurse practitioners in 2019 to help serve the community.
The hours of operation are from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. Monday to Thursday and 8 a.m. to 1 p.m. on Friday, with evening appointments available virtually on Tuesday and Thursday evenings.
