New Community Clinic now open in Edmonds

The MOSAIC Community Clinic, located at 7366 Edmonds St., Burnaby, opened on Thursday, Feb. 6. Attendees included Mayor Mike Hurley, Coun. James Wang, Coun. Daniel Tetrault, Coun. Richard T. Lee, MLA Paul Choi, and MP Peter Julian. The new clinic is a partnership between MOSAIC and the Burnaby Primary Care Network. 

“This is going to be a tremendous addition to this community and we look forward to seeing it grow. It's a wonderful space, and a safe space and a welcoming space and I think that’s so important,” Hurley said about the new clinic.

According to Dr. Baldev Sanghera, Edmonds physician lead at the Burnaby Primary Care Network Steering Committee, the new clinic will provide treatment and services to hundreds or possibly thousands of patients in the community. MOSAIC has hired five primary care physicians and registered nurses, mental health professionals, social workers, and others to provide healthcare for historically underserved populations. 

“A nurse practitioner can handle anywhere from 800 to 1,000 patients. Full FTE family physicians should be able to handle about 1,250. Because these patients are more complex, they may not be able to hit those targets, and we don’t want to rush people, but provide them with the full, holistic care that they need,” Dr. Sanghera told the Beacon. 

Dr. Sanghera added that this clinic is part of a cluster of healthcare facilities serving the Edmonds community. 

“We actually are developing a campus of care so that this community clinic will provide that longitudinal support for vulnerable populations. Across the street, we have the Edmonds Urgent Care Centre, which provides episodic care, and currently, they’re open in the evenings when everybody else is closed,” Dr. Sanghera said. “We also have a large family practice across the street called Sea Cliff Medical, and they’re all part of this campus of care.”

Some of the services offered include mental healthcare, substance use treatment support, lactation and care support for new mothers, and healthcare services for people struggling with homelessness and other complex health needs. 

“The MOSAIC Community Clinic is actually an initiative of the Burnaby Primary Care Network, but is operated by MOSAIC with support from community organizations, but also from Fraser Health, the Burnaby Division of Family Practice and the Burnaby Interagency Council. We are what’s called a priority population medical home, and that means we’re not just seeing anybody off the street,” said Caitlin Johnson, director of the MOSAIC Community Clinic. “We have five identified populations that we will be serving, and these populations were identified as populations that have historically had challenges in accessing health services, particularly primary care. So those priority populations are newcomers to Canada, individuals who identify as First Nations, Inuit or Metis, new mothers and their babies, individuals living with complex mental health issues and those experiencing homelessness and precarious housing.” 

In order to reach the target populations, MOSAIC staff members reached out to various community organizations that work with vulnerable populations. One example is Progressive Housing Society, a nonprofit organization that works with people experiencing homelessness and other issues. 

“The staff at the clinic here met earlier this week with the staff at Progressive Housing to really talk about the service, and how we could best get the people that Progressive Housing staff are seeing into this clinic,” Johnson said. “We’re getting the word out through those partners, through the Primary Care Network and the Division of Family Practice, and through our own social media.”

Johnson added that MOSAIC has consulted with community organizations on how best to serve the clinic’s target population and ensure that services are delivered in a way that respects each population’s culture, diversity, and needs. 

“All of the staff in the clinic actually speak a second language. Now, we don’t cover all the languages in the community, but we cover some of them, and it’s always better to be able to converse directly in the first language. We have that provincial language service that we can tap into as needed,” Johnson said. 

The clinic is also working with the City of Burnaby and director of Indigenous relations and reconciliation, Mikelle Sasakamoose, to look at this clinic through the lens of the First Nations, Metis, and Inuit. 

“I’ve invited members of the host nation to comment on what we’re going to be calling a clinic equity walkthrough. This is like looking at the physical space, as well as our processes, to make sure that we are offering a welcoming environment, but also that our processing systems are culturally safe,” said Johnson.

This piece was made possible by the Local Journalism Initiative.

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