New Montreal North clinic features optometrist, dentist and minor surgery room

An area of Montreal North is no longer a health care desert, after a new CLSC and Family Medicine Group opened this summer with dentist and surgery room.

An area of Montreal North is no longer a health-care desert after a new CLSC and Family Medicine Group opened this summer.

While the CLSC operates like a typical walk-in clinic, there are added services people often have to go elsewhere for, like having a dentist’s office and an optometrist down the hall from each other.

“It’s the first time that we see this with the optometrist, the dentist, and all the services that we have,” said Geneviève Bérard, community-based services coordinator.

Bérard gave CTV News a tour of the facility on Albert-Hudon Boulevard. It’s been open for a month and a half and will be fully operational by the end of September.

The CLSC has implemented what it calls a “no wrong door” approach, meaning patients are guided to the help they need, whatever those needs are.

“You come in and you have an assessment with the nurse or with the social worker, and we can direct your demand to the right professional,” said Bérard.

The CLSC opened alongside a family medicine group. It’s patient Johanne Audette’s first time here after five years on the waitlist for a family doctor.

She told CTV News that it all worked out well: a new doctor in a new place she finds beautiful, clean and organized.

The location was chosen because there is nothing like it in the area. The regional health authority says its study found a lack of health-care services in the densely populated northeast part of the borough.

“We wanted to be sure to offer those services, like, we have a population here that has low income,” said Bérard.

She says she believes it can be replicated elsewhere to give Quebecers access to more services under one roof.