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WANTED - The Kinmount Health Centre is currently on the lookout to recruiting a third doctor. Are you, or someone you know, a Doctor looking to be part of a progressive practice? Would you like to live and work in the beautiful country-side, fish on your days off, take in a night sky full of stars and fireflies, be part of a quiet, simple but friendly lifestyle? Then you're wanted. Please call 705-488-2667.
Check out the Wanted Poster - It could be you or someone you know.
The Kinmount and District Health Centre is located at the intersection of three Counties: the County of Peterborough, the City of Kawartha Lakes, and Haliburton County and provides health care services to people from all of these locations.
Over twenty thousands patient visits take place annually at the Health Centre.
Dr. Elena Mihu and Dr. Zsuzsanna Kaszas provide the following allied health services:
- Rehabilitation: Physiotherapist Sandra Butler
- Pharmacy: Pharmacist Khosrow Eshkour, prescription drug services
- Specimen Laboratory
- Alzheimer Society: counselling and support
- Diabetes Services: A. Ross Memorial Hospital Outreach Program
- Arthritis: counselling and rehabilitation, Arthritis Society of Peterborough
- Home Health Care Management: Haliburton, Northumberland, Victoria Access Centre
- Hearing health services
- Hip and Knee Service: affiliation with Mount Sinai Hospital
The Kinmount and Area District Health Centre is a thriving centre of patient care and well-being. The mission is to provide quality health care in a friendly and compassionate environment with a focus on prevention, education and promoting a healthy community.
The Kinmount District Health Foundation Committee is a major fundraiser for the centre and is Chaired by Mr. Ted Wilkes. The doctors run the medical centre, the Foundation raises the funds the doctors need and the community is always willing to contribute and help with the raising of funds. The Foundation has two fundraising events each year. "The Journey for Health" walk in September and a "Christmas Appeal" program. In addition to these funds the medical centre has also been assisted by community organizations and individuals who wish to privately support the Foundation.
The building is owned by the Township of Galway-Cavendish and Harvey and is located at 31 County Road 503 in the Village of Kinmount.
A major expansion was undertaken in 2008 after the Township of Galway-Cavendish and Harvey received funding under the Municipal Infrastructure Investment Initiative (MIII). The funding in the amount of $500,000 has permitted the building to double in size in order to try to keep pace with the growing demands of health services for the area. The expansion provided not only more efficient and comfortable space for patients but also an expanded Rehabilitation Centre. The official opening for the addition was June 20th, 2009.
Left to Right: Dr. Zsuzsanna Kaszas, Dr. Elena Mihu, Registured Physiotherapist Sandra Butler, Receptionist Nelly Gluck, Receptionist Sherry Wessell, Pharmacist Khosrow Eshkour
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Getting Here From Way Back There
The journey for the Kinmount and District Health Centre actually began way back in 1993 when the village of Kinmount lost its satellite Doctors Office staffed out of the town of Minden. It was blow to the community and in 1995 ordinary residents stepped up, formed the pro-active Kinmount and District Health Services Foundation Committee and began to search for methods and opportunity to re-instate locally delivered health services to the area. It was a genuine and committed citizens-in-action effort.
In 1998 the northern Township of Galway-Cavendish amalgamated with their southern neighbour, the Township of Harvey to form the present Township of Galway-Cavendish and Harvey. The administration office for the newly formed Township was located at that time to Buckhorn leaving the former Township of Galway-Cavendish administrative office in Kinmount vacant. The Foundation saw an opportunity and quickly approached the Council of the newly amalgamated Township of Galway-Cavendish and Harvey for permission to use the vacated Kinmount building as a potential medical clinic. The Township agreed, a good partnership was struck and the Committee and area residents had their motivation ignited.
The building was reborn as a proposed medical centre and fundraising efforts not only supported the conversion of the building but medical equipment and furnishings. However, the biggest challenge in a time of doctor shortages and rural family physicians closing their practices was to find a doctor willing to provide the health care services required by the community.
The Foundation tried the usual advertising, recruiting seminars and retaining initiatives but they were time consuming and didn't produce the result a community desperately wanting and needing accessible medical care hoped for. Then the Committee struck upon a unique and remarkably simple idea. They posted up a "Doctor Wanted" sign on the front lawn of the vacant proposed health centre with an arrow pointing to the building and a telephone number. There were other Doctor Wanted signs that popped up along roadways and it worked. Dr. Elena Mihu, a practising physician in Aurora, Ontario was out on a drive with her husband one day and they drove through the quaint little village of Kinmount and saw a life changing sign. Life changing for Dr. Mihu and life changing for the community she was about to adopt.
She was the first doctor to establish her practice in the Kinmount Health Centre which opened its doors in 1999. The community rallied around its new doctor ensuring through Foundation fundraising efforts that the changes that were needed were done, improvements were completed. The centre, through the Foundation's dedication and establishing rewarding partnerships, is a significant success.
A year of Dr. Mihu's practice and her unusual recruitment was documented by Alister Brown in the 2002 National Film Board of Canada film "A Country Doctor". Dr. Mihu has strived and networked with her community, the Foundation and her peers and colleagues into making the Health Centre not only a Family Physician office but able to provide a number of other beneficial health services to the area. Sights were soon set on trying to attract a second physician to the area to assist Dr. Mihu handle the number of people in need of local health care in the area.
The documentary garnered enough attention and the charm that worked the first time worked the second when a doctor noticed a stack of flyers in the IGA in Minden. Kinmount welcomed a second physician, Dr. Zsuzsanna Kaszas to their community.
The medical centre draws patients from a wide area and is currently home to two family physicians - Dr. Elena Mihu and Dr. Zsuzsanna Kaszas, there is also Physiotherapist Sandra Butler providing physiotherapy and rehabilitation services, Khosrow Eshkour providing a prescription drug pharmacy, allied health services in diabetes management, Alzheimer support, arthritis and home health care and to date recruitment efforts are underway for a third doctor.
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