Increasing availability to essential community care services and lessening stress on other local healthcare providers are two examples of how TeleMed MD will be a huge benefit to the City of Belleville.

The company marked the opening of its new office on 59 Dundas St. East with a ribbon-cutting ceremony on Wednesday morning.

TeleMed MD is the first specialist hub in Ontario that will provide a wide variety of services including psychiatry consultations, addictions counselling and opioid management, weight management and pediatric care, through a combination of online, virtual solutions and on-site, walk-in care facilities.

“We provide both general and comprehensive virtual care,” noted TeleMed CEO and Managing Director Rakesh Mistry.

“We have nurses on-site who do all the assessments, all the triaging and then we connect with doctors over virtual solutions.”

Mistry added they have built a panel of provincially certified specialists who focus on patients’ specific ailments and plan to progressively onboard more programs, including family medicine in the summer.

“It’s a way for patients to understand that they can come here for more of that comprehensive approach.”

The specialized programs required appointments to be booked, but the facility will be open Monday to Friday.

Because of it’s hybrid virtual-onsite model and the connection to similar facilities in Brighton, Marmora, Campbellford and other Southeastern Ontario municipalities, people from those areas can access their records through a portal that Mistry said is currently being built and expanded.

“All of their records can be accessed online, and all are transferrable,” said Mistry.

Aside from providing that essential care to patients, TeleMed’s other primary goal is to substantially reduce wait times for them, which have proven difficult in the past when people can’t immediately get into family doctors, hospital or clinic care.

This is especially apparent in the smaller communities of between 15,000 and 50,000 they work in, Mistry noted, and it's led to what has been referred to as "hallway healthcare."

“In a lot of these smaller communities, you have maybe one-or two-Family Health Teams in a population,” he explained. “A lot of these patients can barely get general, day-to-day care.”

“For them to even access a psychiatrist, for example, the wait times are anywhere from eight months to a year. We are able to get them seen within four weeks.”

Belleville Chamber of Commerce CEO Jill Raycroft said that the specialized care access and extensive support services being offered by TeleMed, along with connections to local pharmacies for medication and treatment are all great opportunities for the community.  

“We know how hard it is for people to find doctors and we know we have a lot of people moving to the area who have that as one of the biggest things on their list,” said Raycroft.

“We’re so grateful that they’ve chosen Belleville to open this new location and we’re looking forward to seeing how they support our community.”

TeleMed has been around as a company for 25 years, but Mistry said they have been in the area for the last four years.

TeleMed will be working closely with local community health partners such as Life Labs, Public Health, and Diagnostic Centers to facilitate their services.

If you are an Ontario resident, all services are OHIP covered and other health insurances are also accepted.

Belleville Mayor Mitch Panciuk, Couns. Garnet Thompson and Tyler Allsopp, Bay of Quinte MP Neil Ellis, representatives of MPP Todd Smith’s office and other Chamber members were on hand for the occasion.

Visit TeleMed's website to learn more about its programs and services.