| Jun 08, 2016


Wolfe Islanders have struggled over the years to develop and maintain medical services on the island.

There are many stories about difficult trips by car, horse and buggy, sleigh, ferry boat or other inventive means of transportation as patients scrambled to get to Kingston when in medical distress.

In the early years of the 20th Century there were doctors living on and servicing the island, at least on a part-time basis, but between the late 1930s and the early 1970s there was no consistent service.

That all changed in 1972, when Dr. George Merry, who lived on the island and had a medical practice in Kingston, approached the local council and asked them to look into the cost of establishing a medical facility on the island.

A public meeting was called and 200 people attended. Eventually $12,000 was raised, enough money to purchase a 12 ft. by 52 ft. trailer, which was initially located on Dr. Merry's property.

The clinic was stocked with supplies over the years and was staffed by Dr. Merry and his wife Catherine, who was a nurse.

When Dr. Merry took on more responsibilities in Kingston and was no longer able to offer services on the island, the trailer was moved to a location next to the fire hall and ambulance base at the edge of Marysville, on land that was donated by Mildred Hawkins-Walton and Keith Walton. A succession of doctors offered service in the trailer, until it burned down in 2008.

Within two years a new facility was in place, and in 2013 the most modern version of the clinic re-opened at that same site.

Currently, Dr. Deanna Russell holds clinic hours one day a week and has about 200 patients on roster at the clinic. There is also a nurse practitioner available for part of another day, funded by the clinic itself. One Friday a month, Frontenac Paramedic Services provides a checkup service for certain chronic conditions as part of its community para-medicine project, and every second Friday, a blood clinic run by Life Labs is held at the centre.

Linda Thomas is the chair of the eight-member Wolfe Island Medical Services Board. She moved to Wolfe Island 17 years ago and has done a lot of volunteer work since then. She said, “One thing led to another and I ended up on this board and then chairing it. It is a very good, hard working board, and we have volunteers who help us provide service. We have receptionists, people who help with maintenance; everything we do requires a volunteer effort.”

Since the board receives no outside funding, it uses fundraising to provide for the upkeep of the building and for the nurse practitioner service.

Its major fund-raising event of the year, the Wolfe Island Classic, is a running race that will take place on July 3 this year.

Thomas feels that Wolfe Island residents are under-served as opposed to other residents of Kingston and Frontenac County.

Certainly, compared to residents of Frontenac County who are rostered into any of the Family Health Organiz (FHO) clinics - the Sydenham and Verona clinics and the Sharbot Lake Family Health Team - Wolfe Islanders do not have the benefit of everyday service by doctors, nurse practitioners, dieticians, registered nurses, and other services that are available. They must travel to Kingston.

“I feel we can make an argument that we are remote, in terms of time if not distance,” said Thomas.

One of the difficulties that Islanders face is their limited numbers, and the fact that many are used to travelling to Kingston for emergency and ongoing medical and social services.

“We keep on working, however, and trying to bring more service to the island and trying to keep this building in use as much as we can,” she said.

While the municipality of Frontenac Islands does not fund the clinic, they have in recent years decided to rebate the property taxes that the clinic pays, which has been a big help, according to Linda Thomas.

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