A new no wait walk-in clinic is now open in Mississauga

With cold and flu season upon us (and with everyone exercising increased caution in the wake of the Wuhan coronavirus outbreak), there’s a good chance you’ll end up visiting a walk-in clinic in Mississauga to find out if your persistent cough needs a little extra TLC from a doctor (especially if you fall ill outside of your family doctor’s hours of operation).

Fortunately for patients who hate waiting forever to see a doctor for a non-emergency ailment, a second No Wait Walk-In clinic is now open in Mississauga. The first clinic, located at 777 Dundas Street West, opened in late 2019. 

The newest location has opened at 6405 Erin Mills Parkway (Unit A01). 

According to No Wait Walk-In, the clinic brings immediate access and total integrated health care together in one model. 

As for how it got started, Ken Pompey, the founder and CEO of No Wait Walk-In, said the concept emerged in May of 2019 when he was talking to a doctor who had always wanted to create some form of no wait walk-in clinic. 

“Once we started the conversation, I took it upon myself to make it happen,” he says.

So, how do the clinics work?

“If you’re in Mississauga, you go to the No Wait Walk-In website and click on a location to be scheduled for a time and a date. You wait no longer than 10 minutes to see a doctor,” Pompey says. 

“You get a certain time slot and appointments are 20 minutes long. The doctor has an opportunity to talk to the patient, but he or she will get right to the complaint.”

There are currently 10 No Wait Walk-In clinics in the GTA, with locations in Brampton, Toronto, Oakville, Vaughan, Thornhill, and Richmond Hill. 

As for what services are available at the clinics, the organization says patients can access family doctors accepting new patients, medical specialists, diabetes, obesity, and cardiovascular care, a bone, joint, and muscle clinic, information about natural healing, anti-ageing, and disease prevention, mental health, anxiety, and stress relief counselling services, eyecare, hearing care, and foot care services, pharmaceutical services, physiotherapy, chiropractic, and massage therapy services, dental, dental hygiene, and denturist services, X-ray, ultrasound, and lab services, and access to MRI, CT scan, and other imaging services. 

Besides offering extremely minimal waits, the clinics are also a gateway to telemedicine specialist consultations, which means they allow patients to see a doctor virtually. A telemedicine consultation is like a regular specialist appointment, except the specialist is on a monitor.

“The physical part still happens face to face and there’s the telemedicine piece for remote locations such as Guelph or Timmins. We’ll link up a computer from any pharmacy to one of our locations in the GTA and we’ll connect a patient with one of our doctors,” he says.  

“They just have to go to their local pharmacy and there’s a pharmacy in every town in Canada.” 

Pompey says No Wait Walk-In doctors are doctors who can take on more patients.

While the clinic hours vary depending on how long the doctors are available, Pompey says most clinics are open from 9 am until 8 pm, Monday through Saturday. 

“They deal with all the things a walk-in clinic doctor deals with,” he says. 

Pompey says that the doctors are on hand to deal with non-emergency issues and refer patients to specialists should a case require more attention. 

“The doctor is a general practitioner. If someone’s health issue is more in-depth, he or she will direct you to the correct specialist. Doctors can prescribe medication as well.”

Pompey says the model works by not over-scheduling appointments. 

“No one can take a time that’s already blocked off,” he says. “Our doctors get the patient in and then, if necessary, to the correct physician. If someone comes in with an emergency, we will advise them to get to a hospital immediately. There’s no need for anyone to be in a waiting room for three hours.” 

Pompey says doctors are enthusiastic about the concept. 

“A lot of doctors are excited about it. It gives the patient an opportunity to research what the doctor told has told him or her before he or she sees a specialist,” he says. 

Pompey says patients have also responded well. 

“People like the idea because they’re able to see a doctor and move on with whatever they need to do. There’s a very large need. We’ve grown from four clinics to 10 since November 2019. We expect to grow to 50 within the next few months,” he says adding that the company hopes to open over 100 clinics within the next two years. 

“It’s a matter of growing demand.”

Editor’s note: This article has been updated to include the new address of the first no wait walk-in clinic in Mississauga