Clinic for post-COVID complications opened at RJH

Vancouver Island’s first in-person clinic for people suffering from post-COVID complications has opened at the Royal Jubilee Hospital in Victoria. This is the fifth long COVID clinic in BC and the first of its kind outside the Lower Mainland.

Island Health says the clinic opened on March 1, and according to Dr. Jeff Unger, emergency physician at Saanich Peninsula Hospital, it started taking referrals on April 12. Its arrival was not a moment too soon as more and more patients with long COVID symptoms are starting to go to emergency rooms for treatment.

The problem is compounded by the growing number of Greater Victoria residents who don’t have a family doctor or couldn’t get an appointment at walk-in clinics and urgent care clinics. The result is hospital emergency rooms are again overburdened and understaffed, and patients are having to wait up to eight hours for care.

“I’ve never seen it this bad in the 22 years I’ve been working in Victoria,” Unger said.

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