PEI·NewP.E.I.’s health minister says the doors to a new community health centre in Summerside should be open early next year, but a backbench Progressive Conservative MLA worries about how the government is going to find doctors to work there. Tyler DesRoches wants to see physician recruitment team dedicated to Prince CountyBrittany Spencer · CBC News · Posted: Nov 21, 2025 6:00 PM EST | Last Updated: 30 minutes agoListen to this articleEstimated 4 minutesThe audio version of this article is generated by text-to-speech, a technology based on artificial intelligence.Health and Wellness Minister Mark McLane says Summerside’s new community health centre is expected to open in March and will include primary care, mental health services, a provincial geriatrics program, as well as public health nurses and dental services. (iStock)P.E.I.’s health minister says the doors to a new community health centre in Summerside should be open early next year, but a backbench Progressive Conservative MLA worries about how the government is going to find doctors to work there.Summerside-Wilmot PC MLA Tyler DesRoches said people in his community have been watching the transformation of a former trade school site on the city’s Granville Street for the past several years. Demolition and construction work to build the new community health centre on that site has been underway since 2022. Speaking in the P.E.I. Legislature on Friday, DesRoches said it looks like that work is close to being finished, and asked Health Minister Mark McLane when Summerside residents can expect to start accessing services there. “No one seems to know when it’s going to open,” DesRoches said. “Is it going to be a soft open, is it going to be fully open? What’s going on with it?” Health Minister Mark McLane says the province is focused on a provincewide family physician recruitment strategy, but ultimately the decision about where they practise is up to the individual doctor. (Legislative Assembly of P.E.I.)McLane said the new $23-million centre is expected to include primary care, mental health services, a provincial geriatrics program, as well as public health nurses and dental services.He said he expects that centre to open in March.“We’re very excited about a new facility. We know from a recruitment perspective that new facilities certainly help attract our physicians,” McLane said. Dedicated recruitment team for Prince County?While he was pleased the minister provided a timeline for opening the health centre, DesRoches said he has concerns about how the province plans to keep it staffed, specifically with family doctors. “We hear about extended wait times in emergency rooms, no walk-in clinics they can access in Summerside, or the ones that are there they can’t get calls to get in,” DesRoches told CBC News.’We hear about extended wait times in the emergency rooms, no walk-in clinics,’ says PC MLA Tyler DesRoches, who wants to see a team established to recruit doctors specifically to Prince County. (Rick Gibbs/CBC)He said he’s heard from several residents in the area who have been on the provincial patient registry for years waiting to be assigned a primary care provider and fear that, without new family practices, other services like Prince County Hospital’s emergency department will continue to be overwhelmed with patients. “We’ve heard in the past that shiny and new brings physicians,” DesRoches said. “You can’t get much newer or much shinier than that big building there….“[Are] there any new physicians that will be coming to Summerside to fill this new building?” McLane said family physicians choose where they practice on P.E.I., and while the province will pay doctors $40,000 more through a return-in-service agreement to incentivise doctors to work at PCH, that decision is ultimately up to each individual physician. ‘A rising tide raises all boats’Speaking with reporters outside the legislative chamber, DesRoches said if Prince County had a dedicated physician recruitment team in place, it may increase the number of doctors choosing to live and work in western P.E.I. — along with the number of those who choose to stay there.“They don’t ask a doctor to go here, to go there. They bring the doctors to the Island and allow them to… make their own choices,” he said. “A lot of the doctors like to come closer to Charlottetown.” DesRoches said Summerside is growing and has a lot to offer. He thinks a recruitment team for Prince County may be able to show them that. McLane said for now, P.E.I. is going to keep its focus on an Island-wide recruitment strategy.“We work with our physicians on what their specialty is, where they want to work,” the health minister said. “We don’t want to pit one area against another; we want to just bring physicians to P.E.I. A rising tide raises all boats, so we’ll continue to focus on recruitment for all facilities.”ABOUT THE AUTHORBrittany Spencer is a multi-platform reporter and producer with CBC Prince Edward Island. She’s covered politics, health care and the justice system. She’s a graduate of Toronto Metropolitan University’s journalism program and joined CBC in 2017. You can reach her at brittany.spencer@cbc.caWith files from Wayne Thibodeau
PC MLA questions how province will staff Summerside’s new community health centre
