If you are in pain, relief may come your way sooner rather than later.
Windsor Regional Hospital opened two new Rapid Assessment Centres (RAC) this week , one devoted to hip and knee issues and the other to lower back pain. Jennifer Nugent, an advanced practice physiotherapist, says those conditions may affect about 70 per cent of adult Canadians at one point in their lifetime.
Nugent said the RACs cut wait times by getting pain patients to see a physiotherapist within weeks, rather than months.
"The rapid access centres, especially for lower back pain, is now allowing us to treat the continuum of low back pain as a shared care model with primary-care physicians and neurosurgeons with an advanced practice physiotherapist," said Nugent.
Patients who suffer from this kind of pain often have to wait months to get an appointment with a surgeon, then have to wait for surgery if needed. Through the RAC system, patients are shown how to manage their pain without having to utilize opioid prescriptions, unnecessary tests, or appointments with specialists.
Patrick McMahon, 68, has been suffering from lower back pain for several years and is one of the first patients to visit the RAC for back pain, located at the Ouellette campus. McMahon said he was pleasantly surprised by not only how fast he got an appointment, but also the attention he received once in the door.
"I was kind of surprised that I was called rapidly," said McMahon. "When I got here, my appointment was for two o'clock and I was in within that time frame. They explained everything in detail to me as to what they were going to do."
Hip and knee assessments are not only available at WRH's Metropolitan campus, but also at satellite RACs in Chatham and Sarnia. Patients have the option of either getting an appointment at the one closest to them, or seeing someone sooner at any location.
Patients must be referred to the RAC by their primary-care doctor or a nurse practitioner. Visits are covered by OHIP.
Complete information on the hip-and-knee RAC and the lower-back RAC is available at Windsor Regional Hospital's official website.