Royal Victoria Regional Health Centre (RVH) is improving access to care for residents of Innisfil and south Barrie with the opening of several outpatient clinics at Innisfil’s new Rizzardo Health and Wellness Centre. The Rizzardo clinics are an important first step in RVH’s long-term, graduated plan to bring healthcare closer to home for residents of south Simcoe County.
“Offering these services at Rizzardo is great news for people living in south Simcoe who, in the past, would have to travel to RVH’s Georgian Drive facility for care. Having these clinics closer to home makes it easier to access care, while reducing stress for our patients and families,” says Janice Skot, RVH president and CEO. “RVH’s clinics will continue to expand and we expect the number of annual patient visits to exceed 14,000.”
In partnership with the Town of Innisfil, RVH leases 5,000 square feet of space in the centre and, in December, began offering a variety of outpatient clinics, including Preschool Speech-Language Pathology, Preschool Occupational Therapy, Preschool Autism Spectrum Disorder Diagnostic Clinic and Infant Hearing Screening.
Following the successful opening of the child and youth clinics, RVH opened several cardiorespiratory outpatient clinics including Pulmonary Function Test (PFT), Electrocardiogram (ECG), and Holter monitor. In the coming months RVH will continue to add services such as Child and Youth Eating Disorders Clinic, Stroke Prevention Clinic and an Internal Medicine Clinic. RVH also introduced a self-registration kiosk at the clinic, new technology that makes the registration process quick and easy and will be rolled-out throughout RVH’s main campus in the months ahead.
One Innisfil resident grateful for the care closer to home is Julia Rettie, mom of premature twins Brooklyn and Rachel.
“Having the RVH clinics at the Rizzardo Health & Wellness Centre so close to home really helps support a normal lifestyle for me being a first time mother of premature twins. Instead of having to load up the car and head to Barrie, Newmarket or even Toronto, I am able to get the support I need for my girls right in our own community,” says Julia. “The staff we’ve worked with have been absolutely amazing and have truly impacted the way my daughters have grown and achieved their milestones. We thank you from the bottom of our hearts.”
In addition to the RVH clinics, the Rizzardo Health and Wellness Centre, located at Yonge Street and Innisfil Beach Road, features a number of services including family physicians, a walk-in clinic, LifeLabs and Georgian Radiology, with a pharmacy and dentistry to come.
