New Women’s Health Clinic Opens In Moncton
MONCTON – As physiotherapists Katie Kelly and Eryn Matheson saw increasing demand for their services in the past few years, they also saw a gap in multidisciplinary care for women. So they opened ReConnect Health Centre to work alongside other health professionals with an interest in women’s health.
The clinic on 25 Gorge Rd. opened late June. It has 13 practitioners, including a dietitian, psychologist for both adults and children, massage therapists, a gynecologist, an acupuncturist, a chiropractor, a childbirth educator, a kinesiologist, and physiotherapists for adults and children.
With a studio, a small-gym and lactation room in the 3,500-square-foot space, the clinic also hosts yoga instructors and lactation consultants weekly. The pair said it’s important that women have access to a range of practitioners for effective care, and practitioners’ collaboration is key.
“We really need to look at systemic health. So if someone is having a urinary issue, then the bladder is not only affected by the muscles, there’s going to be, what are you consuming? What is the psychology behind your behaviours?” she said.
“It’s an ease of transmission of information between the practitioners…it just allows for our delivery of our treatments to be that much more effective.”
Kelly and Matheson, both pelvic floor physiotherapists, treat conditions such as constipation, incontinence, bed-wetting in children, as well as conditions faced by women during menopause, pregnancy and post-childbirth, among others. They also offer rehabilitation treatment for men following prostate cancer or tailbone injuries.
Kelly said she’s not aware of any other clinics offering private gynecology services, or one with such a broad multidisciplinary scope aimed at women’s health in the Maritimes. But ReConnect is modeled after clinics in larger cities like Montreal and in the U.S.
Kelly and Matheson have been physiotherapists for more than a decade. Matheson had always wanted to have a women’s health clinic, and when they ran out of space at the clinic they were operating from, they decided to get a new building altogether.
“We wanted to teach more classes, we want to have a community feel and unless we owned the space, it was hard for us to make those changes happen,” said Kelly, adding that they also wanted to bring the practitioners they’ve been referring patients to, to the new clinic.
Many of them are subcontractors or independent practitioners renting space in the clinic. The pair hopes this helps other women in business grow.
“We had been running our own businesses for a couple of years and we know how hard it is sometimes we’re in this our particular stage in life like with young kids. And we already have really great relationships with a lot of these people. So we kind of said, ‘how can we support people growing their own practice and growing our own business?'” she said. “I love that part of the small business aspect.”
Although ReConnect is a private clinic, Kelly and Matheson hopes it can alleviate the wait times in the public health system by removing people who can afford services from the line-ups.
“We recognize that this is a two-tiered health system. And we understand that not everyone’s going to be able to afford the services that are here…We see that we, we respect it, we’re trying to troubleshoot to see what we can do to help support people who are in a lower economical bracket because they will often get neglected in treatment,” Kelly said.
A Shift In Healthcare
Kelly and Matheson said they’re seeing more private medical businesses opening up as healthcare shifts towards prevention and wellness.
“I think a lot of people are advocating more for their own health. And if the service isn’t provided publicly, because the public system can only provide so much, you’ll see the private sector step in to fill the gap. And I think we’re seeing that more and more,” Kelly said.
One of ReConnect’s popular services is birth preparation. Before, more patients would seek treatment for injuries post-childbirth.
“Women’s health was kind of a taboo subject. So previous generations, my grandmother’s generation and even potentially my mother’s generation, if something would happen…if they would have pain with intercourse, that was not something that you discussed with your friends,” Kelly said. “And now women are talking about it more…So they’re coming in and seeking treatment before there really is a severe problem.”
“I don’t think that public health care system is is able to support that. So I think that’s where you will start to see is that we’re going to have that private sector that will come in,” she added.
For Kelly and Matheson, it’s important that there’s a comfortable space for women to seek treatment. While men are welcome to the clinic, “we really feel like this has been lacking for a long time for women and we’re happy to step up and create this space,” Matheson said.
Covid-19 made the pair a little nervous financially, but so far, their workload has remained at pre-pandemic levels. They’ve also started offering online consultations because they have clients as far as Northern New Brunswick, Nova Scotia and Newfoundland.
Meanwhile, ReConnect’s exercise classes are offered online and in-person, physically-distanced. With some birth preparation services closed at the hospitals due to Covid-19, ReConnect’s childbirth educator has seen an upswing in demand.
But even without a pandemic, Kelly and Matheson expect demand for the clinic’s services to grow steadily.
“I think women in particular are demanding better. They want better care, they want faster access to care, they want care before there’s a problem, they want to know about prevention. And I don’t think that that’s going to go away,” Matheson said. “I think they see…in some of the bigger cities, there’s access to these services and like. Why not Moncton? So here we are.”