New health hub will allow Kingston doctors to roster 3 , 500 patients

thewhig.com · Feb 20, 2026 · Collected from GDELT

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Supplied photoKINGSTON — A brand new clinic will help up to 14,000 Kingston-area patients access specialized care thanks to partnerships with five primary care health clinics in the city.Subscribe now to read the latest news in your community.Unlimited online access to all articles on thewhig.com.Access to subscriber-only content, including History: As We Saw It, a weekly newsletter that rips history from our archives, which span almost 190 years.Enjoy insights and behind-the-scenes analysis from our award-winning journalists.Support local journalism and the next generation of journalists.Subscribe now to read the latest news in your community.Unlimited online access to all articles on thewhig.com.Access to subscriber-only content, including History: As We Saw It, a weekly newsletter that rips history from our archives, which span almost 190 years.Enjoy insights and behind-the-scenes analysis from our award-winning journalists.Support local journalism and the next generation of journalists.Create an account or sign in to keep reading.Access more articles from thewhig.com.Share your thoughts and join the conversation in the comments.Get email updates from your favourite journalists.Create an account or sign in to continue with your reading experience.Access articles from across Canada with one accountShare your thoughts and join the conversation in the commentsEnjoy additional articles per monthGet email updates from your favourite authorsSign In or Create an AccountorStaff and partners celebrated the opening of the Spruce Health Hub on Thursday. Located at 714 Front Rd., the health hub is designed to create a single, co-ordinated point of access for family doctors and nurse practitioners to refer people who need mental health services, chronic disease management, physiotherapy or other community supports, a release from the Frontenac Lennox & Addington Ontario Health Team (FLA-OHT) said on Thursday.Putting all of these resources into one location will help local family doctors take care of more people, says Dr. Kim Morrison, the executive lead for the FLA-OHT.Morrison, a primary care provider, chief of staff at the Lennox and Addington County General Hospital, and an associate professor in Queen’s Department of Family Medicine, described the FLA-OHT’s “North Star mission” continues to be ensuring that “every person in our community can be attached to a person-centred health home, which is a primary care team.”Your weekday lunchtime roundup of curated links, news highlights, analysis and features.By signing up you consent to receive the above newsletter from Postmedia Network Inc.A welcome email is on its way. If you don't see it, please check your junk folder.The next issue of The Kingston Whig-Standard's Noon News Roundup will soon be in your inbox.We encountered an issue signing you up. Please try again“It’s your front door to the health system,” she told the Whig on Friday morning. “It’s where, in your neighbourhood and close to home, everybody has a place to go to find the services they need to keep them healthy and well.”With a 10-person clinic staff, the Spruce Health Care Hub will support family doctors by providing immediate referral possibilities to a host of clinical staff at Spruce.“This is a place where allied health professionals like psychologists, social workers, nurse practitioners, chronic disease nurses, dieticians, physiotherapists and community navigators, as examples, can all come together to support our primary care teams,” Morrison said.Currently, the hub will support the more than 14,000 patients of Greenwood Medical, Frontenac Doctors, Princess Street Medical Clinic, CDK Family Medicine, and Medical Tree, primary care clinics in the city.“Say you’re looking for an appointment with your doctor because you’ve hurt your back. Rather than seeing a family doctor or nurse practitioner in your health home first, you could be directly referred to a physiotherapist as part of this allied health.”Those with mental health concerns could be directly referred to a psychologist or social worker without needing an appointment with the family doctor for referral.“The idea is by having a team of people, everybody can work at the top of the scope of practice, and that builds capacity to be able to have more people connected to that home,” Morrison said.The hub project began with applications to the Ontario government’s $2.1-billion Primary Care Action Plan in spring 2025. Final approvals came through at the end of last year, with the clinic being supported by $1.49 million from the province.The Maple Family Health Team has partnered with the project, as well.“Maple Family Health Team is proud to partner in this shared approach to care,” Ashley Miller, executive director of the Maple Family Health Team, said in a supplied statement. “Through the Spruce Health Hub, people gain direct access to care, from community support workers to physiotherapy and mental health care. We are providing the tools primary care teams need to better serve people under one roof.”“As a retired nurse and caregiver, I’ve seen how hard it can be to navigate the system,” said Sharon Coyle, a member of the FLA-OHT Community Council and Maple FHT Patient and Family Advisory Council, in a supplied statement. “The Spruce Health Hub shows what’s possible when community voices and health-care partners come together to make care easier to access and more connected.”Morrison said that the funding from the province was granted to allow primary care providers to roster another 3,500 new patients in Kingston who have been waiting for a family doctor on the Health Care Connect list.“We’re almost at the 3,500 and we’re going to exceed that,” she said.Morrison said that anyone who is still waiting for a family physician should make sure they’re registered with Health Care Connect. Information on how to do that can be found at the FLA-OHT website at www.flaoht.ca/pages/hcc.Morrison hopes the Spruce Health Hub will become a model for establishing other similar clinics across the Frontenac and Lennox & Addington region, including in rural areas where providing health-care services can be more challenging.“Certainly building these models of hubs has set the groundwork to how we can now replicate that,” she said. “It will not take as long to sort out how to build a hub when we have the ability to do that, say in North Frontenac or the northern part of South Frontenac, because we’ve got a template now.”The entire team at Spruce and its supporting partners were able to mark the grand opening together on Thursday with a sense of pride and positivity.“We’re super excited to be able to open this for our community, and thankful for all of the support we get from our health partners, our community members, Ontario Health and the ministry,” Morrison said.mbalogh@postmedia.com Join the Conversation This website uses cookies to personalize your content (including ads), and allows us to analyze our traffic. 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