Could she be your patient?
It’s a typical day at the clinic and a new patient arrives without an appointment. She’s in her early 20s and behaves in an agitated fashion, but she’s polite and trying her best not to disrupt anyone else. The body language of other patients in the waiting room shows curiosity, wariness and perhaps a little fear. The patient leans in to the clinic staff and says,
Please, I need to see a doctor. I’m an opioid user and I need help.
Could this happen in your clinic? The answer is YES. In every community across Alberta, there are people with, or at risk of, Opioid Use Disorder (OUD). For Katie, it took getting arrested for her to get the help she required because she could not find the support she needed to start her journey to sobriety. Watch Katie talk about her road to recovery here. (video courtesy of City of Leduc)
- When this happens at your clinic, are you and your team willing to support this patient?
- Do you and your team feel confident in supporting this patient?
- Could you and your team identify who, among your existing panel, is at risk of OUD?
Now is the time to actively identify and seek out patients like Katie. Look beyond your panel and connect with local ODT clinics to provide safe, consistent care for stable patients without a family physician.
Tools, support and resources are available to you and your team through the Primary Health Care Opioid Response Initiative (PHC ORI).
If Katie is not your patient, could she be?
