This mobile clinic wants to relieve pressure at rural hospitals near Ottawa

One of Ottawa's homelessness and addiction recovery treatment (HART) hubs is branching out by offering assistance to hospitals in nearby rural areas, starting with Kemptville, Ont.

As part of a pilot project that launched in January, the Kemptville District Hospital can now call for a mobile team from the West Ottawa HART Hub to provide care for those with substance use and housing concerns.

The goal, they say, is to help alleviate pressure on the hospital's emergency department.

The program is up and running now, even though the West Ottawa HART Hub's main centre in Bells Corners won't be open until March.

Anthony Desloges, a physician assistant and clinical manager with the West Ottawa HART Hub, said the mobile team consists of a registered nurse, a social worker, and a case manager.

The team also has a specialized van that acts as a "clinic on wheels," he said.

Kemptville was chosen for the project, Desloges said, as it's "a growing community with a clear service gap for substance use health."

"Kemptville is quite far from where our brick-and-mortar centre will be inside Ottawa, so it represented a very great location for us to test out our service to see if we can expand it later to the other rural locations," he told CBC Radio's Ottawa Morning.

While the Kemptville District Hospital has access to a social worker, it lacks other specialized services, said Katie Hogue, the hospital's vice-president of clinical services and its chief nursing executive.

"When you look at where we are in Kemptville and North Grenville, we don't have the services directly in the rural communities to provide that for patients," she said.

There have been times, Hogue said, when patients were unnecessarily admitted to the hospital so that their social supports could be supported out — something she hoped the new mobile clinic would help address.

LISTEN | Anthony Desloges and Katie Hogue discuss the new program:

The hubs are meant to be a one-stop shop for people struggling with addictions and mental health issues, as well as homelessness, though they do not provide any kind of supervised drug consumption services.

The model was introduced after the Ontario government banned supervised drug consumption sites near schools and child-care centres in 2024, effectively shutting down 10 sites across the province.

Ontario has opened 23 HART hubs across the province, with five more scheduled to open in 2026, a ministry of health spokesperson told CBC News.