Bayview Hill Medical Centre

It’s incredibly difficult to schedule an appointment! When we first met our family doctor, we were informed that we probably have to wait almost 6 months for a normal body test. And now my wife is pregnant, and we are facing one and half months wait time to see the doctor.

Nice staffs. Tho they are usually very busy, you can still tell that they are trying to help patients. The lady taking the blood test is super nice. I am always afraid of needles. She keeps talking to me to distract me from focusing on the pain, which helps me a lot. And my doctor Dr Alice Xu is very patient and gentle. The only thing is hard to have an appointment in a month.

So sad to see this clinic changed from great to poor over the past few years. Doctor is fine. The receptionist and appointment booking are sooooo bad. Certain thing can be done with a 2 minuts phone call with doctor and save their time to see more patients. However, the receptionist insists to see us in person a few weeks later even though I told her it is the doctor told us to call in to remind doctor to book CT scan. This is ridiculous. Given how bad this place is now, we have to switch clinics and family doctor.

-At the end, the receptionist called back a few hours later and informed me that she booked a phone call with the doctor two days later to provide request of CT scan. Then I don't have to wait for 2-3 weeks to be there in person for the CT scan request.

In old days (maybe 20 years ago), family doctors know their patients well in terms of their health conditions, their body’s continuously changing health trends, medications history, as well as their close family members’ relevant information; so Family Doctors can always advise the best possible actions to respond to any health challenges or unsure conditions when they arise. We trust our Family Doctors as they can give you relevant advises. They are reachable, available, accessible, advisable; a resource that we can rely on.

It is not anymore today. Especially after the pandemic, “Family Doctor” is just a term representing a GATE that purposely stops people “disturbing” the Healthcare System. Or it represents a triage mechanism to isolate “risky patients” who might be harmful to the healthcare personnel at healthcare facilities including but not limited to Family Doctor clinics.

Family Doctors refuse to engage in consultation conversations becomes a “norm”. It has been for the last year repeated responses to medical consultation requests – “phone appointment is 6 weeks and if it is urgent, go to Emergency or Walk-in Clinics”. “Dr. XXXX is fully booked for the next two months”. “No room for any Covid-related consultation, you can go to Government websites, you can find advices there”.

Given the quality of information and the huge amount of classified yet not well categorized information, one can spend two days just to find some relevant sites but might not confidently believe the information is usable and trustworthy. It all depends on one’s own knowledge about the topics and the capability to understand the contents. IS THE HEALTHCARE SYSTEM HELPING?

Family Doctor is supposed to be the front-line resource to assist healthcare service users to access to the most appropriate assistance they need at the most efficient and effective way. Timely responses, care attitude and professional advices are the key elements that this function should offer.

I suffered from Covid infection on June 19. I went through a tough recovery journey after 8 days, finally self-tested negative but left behind serious loss of voice. I can hardly say a word. I tried to contact the Family Doctor office and here are the conversation with the one answering the phone:

Me: Hi, I want to book an appointment with Dr. XXXX. Phone consultation would be suffice. Just wanted to get some advices re post-covid possible measures re my “loss of voice” situation.

FD Office: I can hear from your voice, are you Covid infected? What is your name and birthdate? **I provided all patient information and verified.

FD Office: When did you get Covid? Who lived with you? Did she get Covid and when? **The office then asked about all my close family members and confirmed if they have Covid and if they live with me.

After 5 minutes of conversation, I was never asked about “what do you need? ”; just a series of questions to identify how “risky” I am in terms of level of infection as a family group. They need the information as record so that future triage can be used to make sure we are “safe” to be serviced. It is absolutely DISAPPOINTED.

Me: I just need a conversation with Dr. XXXX about my current situation – loss of voice after Covid infection recovery and see if any possible medication to help.

FD Office: Doctors are not taking any Covid related appointment. You can go to Government websites. There are websites that provide general guidance on what to do when you are infected. There is no room for any Covid related appointments.

I was sitting there and felt helpless! I suddenly ask myself – what is the Family Doctor for? Am I supposed to get help from them OR just identify myself as “risky patient” so they should AVOID me in future. What is the function of Family Doctor? Why do they exist in the HealthCare system? What does their existence do to me, as a patient and a Healthcare service consumer?

WHAT IS THE VALUE OF “FAMILY DOCTOR” IF IT IS SO INACCESSIBLE?

One of the worse clinics I have ever encountered. I feel bad that my mother is a patient here. We have been actively searching for a new family doctor for her. Dr. Sharon Wong, is the most rude and arrogant family doctor we have ever experienced and does not care about her patient's health or concerns.

Very good experience, have been with Dr Alice Xu for almost 3 years with no issues. Dr. Xu is a very caring, professional and compassionate doctor.
I didn't feel rushed, although she must have countless other patients waiting for her.

Ok so in this place you need to wait for a minimum of 10 days to see a doctor, and that’s not the worst part. After 10+ days waiting, just when you think you can finally see your doctor, you find out your appointment was cancelled long ago and you were not even notified. They don’t treat patients as their equal, instead they think patients are inferior to them so they don’t need to care about patients’ time, health or feeling. Stay away from this place.

Bayview hIll Medical clinic no one answer the phone, only
answer machine tell you book appointment on line,
What kind of clinic? If urgent need to see the doctor
Only way is go to emergency or call 911

Sad to see how many people feel the same way about this clinic. It used to be an excellent clinic, but now it is the complete opposite. Dr. Xu is a fine doctor, the main problem is the way the place is managed. Most of the receptionist hates their job and you can tell by the tone of their voices, they are clearly short staffed and took on more patients they could handle. It's truly sad because it has a great and convenient location in the neighborhood, but does it matter if I have to wait 3 weeks for an appointment to see my family doctor?

If you don’t want to waste your time, don’t go to this clinic! I was in the waiting list 6 months, then I got my family doctor Alice Jiangrui Xu, she took so many clients, I don’t feel her patient, each appointment requested have to wait at least 3 weeks, even when I got pregnant, she does what she wants, no patient, the best thing she did for me is only refer me to the fertility, the reception never got the fax from the fertility, they admitted they had some fax updated problem, I took 2 months to transfer out my file to my new family doctor! Because they are not able to sent it out, the system is horrible, they charged every paper for 1 dollars when I printed my record in the clinic! Ridiculous clinic useless service

I’m not a patient but my husband is. Apparently, COVID is still at the peak for this clinic and they are only seeing very few patients a day and all by telephone. He made an appointment and he has to wait till April to get one?
This is definitely not a good clinic for primary care and not even walk in. I don’t understand why this clinic is still in business. Are they seeing the very few patients just to keep their license? They don’t seems to care about their patients at all.

Doctors are great but the receptionists are rude and useless. They can't even book an appointment properly. They booked a wrong time and told me to book another appointment to come back another day (And insisted that I was the one who made the mistake). I will switch to a new family doctor as soon as I can. Canada has to stop forcing people to register with just one family doctor so that this place can go out of business as soon as they can. They asked me to go to a walk-in clinic if I need something now. If you can/should just go to a walk-in clinic, then why should we register with just one family doctor? To the receptionists: I hope you and your family receive the same service that I have received.

Receptionist NEVER pick up the phone, I wonder does that mean customers have to walk-in to make an appointment?

Doctors are very nice. However, receptionists are rude and they will hang up on you before you finished talking. Very unprofessional.

Gentleman on the phone is extremely rude, I called for inquiry about making prescription asking whether I need to make an appointment or not as I already had that prescription before, and wondered if I had a refill so I could just buy it (thought calling for information won’t hurt). Instead he says “oh my god you have to book in advance! ” - sorry I asked, I just wanted to make sure. The other day workers were much more helpful and kind to the patient!

1) Inefficient and lack of patient-centric service. Appointment booking frequently wrong, missing and always take priority on physicians' schedule rather than patients' need.
2) No protocol to handle internal miscommunication (doctor didn't send prescription to pharmacy) which caused no delivery of prescribed medication. The worse thing is when patient is at Pharmacy counter and found their order is not available due to doctor didn't send prescription, the only thing office can do is "send a message to the doctor".
3) No office staff on floor to enforce proper COVID protocol. The staff protected themselves very well (covered by all possible PPE) but rarely concerned about people in the waiting area unless they are asked to go into the doctor offices.
4) Medical consultation via phone call is arranged by doctor calling patients via their own personal phones instead of Medical Centre office phone. This could potentially fail to contact the patient when doctor's personal cell was blocked for whatever reason. There is no assurance method to ensure doctor can reach the patients as arranged.

I don't know what is wrong with their phone, been calling them for two days 10 calls but no answer and no call back, very strange.