The Yukon government is still saying it will open a Whitehorse walk-in medical clinic in early 2024, but has not indicated it has hired any staff, put out any job postings, secured a facility, or decided what the payment model will be.

“We are working with the Yukon Medical Association (YMA) to design such a clinic, including with three individual physicians who are guiding the necessity for what that clinic needs to look like and how it will operate to serve Yukoners,” Health Minister Tracy-Anne McPhee said last Thursday in the latest update on the clinic.

The Liberal-NDP Confidence and Supply Agreement sets a deadline to have a walk-in clinic up-and-running by the end of January 2024.

“It can’t just be someone’s best effort,” NDP Leader Kate White told reporters on Oct. 24. “It has to happen.”

The city’s last walk-in clinic closed in August 2021.

A brief debate on the topic occurred during question period last Thursday after NDP MLA Annie Blake asked how many people are on wait lists for a family doctor or primary care provider.

Though McPhee did not provide exact figures, she said there are “a little over 3,500” on these lists.

For context, recently released population numbers show the Yukon has about 45,000 people – meaning almost eight per cent of Yukoners lack access to a primary care doctor.

Blake said this forces people to go to the emergency room for things as simple as prescription renewals, and causes some to avoid going to the doctor until problems become severe enough to warrant admission to the hospital.

“When someone doesn’t have access to primary care, it’s a cancer diagnosis that can be missed until it’s too late; it’s a knee surgery that could have been avoided for another 10 years; it’s diabetes that could have been prevented or better managed,” Blake said.

A written statement from McPhee on Oct. 23 said a walk-in clinic would “connect more Yukoners with primary care and decrease strain on the hospital system and emergency room.”

At that time, she said three physicians were working to design the clinic space and the model, as well as “identify other health care professionals to service the clinic.”

It is unclear from McPhee’s comments in the legislature last Thursday whether these doctors will themselves be working at the clinic.

“The expression of interest for individuals to staff the Whitehorse walk-in clinic has not yet been released,” McPhee told the legislature.

Blake also queried the minister as to whether the walk-in clinic would be using a fee-for-service system, which pays doctors according to how many patients they see, regardless of the complexity of a patient’s needs or time spent with the patient.

B.C. scrapped this system earlier this year to encourage more doctors to work in primary care.

This system is still used in the Yukon, and Blake said doctors avoid working here because of it.

“Many new doctors want to work in family medicine but don’t, specifically because of fee-for-service,” Blake said.

McPhee said she meets monthly with the YMA, and that this is on the agenda every time.

She did not provide any more details.

Despite this lack of concrete plans coming out of the Department of Health and Social Service, White said in her Oct. 24 comments that it is still her expectation that the government will live up to the commitment to open the clinic.

“If you’re lucky enough to have a family doctor and you ask how things are, they’re gonna tell you it’s bananas,” White said.

“And if you’re not lucky enough to have a family doctor and you have to go to the emergency room, you know it’s bananas.

“And so trying to get this walk-in clinic is critical.”