It’s been about a year and a half that the health clinic at Steinbach Regional Secondary School has been open and so far it has proven to be very beneficial.

Hanover School Division Superintendent Randy Dueck says it’s a central part of the culture at SRSS and notes students are taking advantage of the service.

"Each month, we have over 200 student appointments. Over and above that, we have about 45 what we would call student contacts in any given day so it’s a very busy place, a very active place. Our nurse practitioner is the one that sees the official appointments. Contacts sometimes happen with the receptionist or there’s an opportunity for some interaction there but we’re aware that the school can hardly imagine itself without the health clinic nowadays because it’s such a busy place, such an active place."

Dueck gives big thanks to their partners in this project which are Southern Health and Steinbach Family Medical Clinic. He notes they have a doctor from Steinbach Family Medical who comes in on occasion along with a variety of other specialists and Dueck adds they're starting to run out of room in the clinic. 

"The demand is there for an additional examination room and we do have a doctor that comes in roughly about two times a month right now and we don’t really want to close down the current examination room, we want to keep them both going if we can because the demand is there. So we’re just reorganizing some of the space we have in that area already to provide for an additional examination room."

He adds it’s been very positive so far and they hope to continue to grow the service so students can have access to any kind of health concerns that they may have. 

"We do provide a dietitian on a regular schedule in the area. They can come learn more about what they can do to actually make some positive healthy food choices for themselves. We have a mental health worker that works alongside our nurse practitioner there. We have public health nurses that come in and work there. Our addictions foundation of Manitoba councillor works there and has an office in that area so there’s a variety of other pieces, there’s some reproductive health matters that come up in some of those appointments as well."