COCHRANE— A new clinic has opened in Cochrane that will allow residents to receive diagnostic imaging close to home.
Cochrane Mayfair Diagnostics officially opened its doors on Friday (Nov. 13) for a full day of operations, said marketing director June Diment. The clinic is located at 116 Grande Boulevard and offers ultrasounds, mammography and bone mineral densitometry medical imaging exams.
The hope is the services offered at the clinic will grow over time and expand to a wider range of options to meet clients' needs, Diment said.
Mayfair has been working on opening a clinic in Cochrane for a number of years.
“There was a clear need for diagnostic imaging within the town— People were having to travel to Calgary,” Diment said. These day trips for essential health care can often prove challenging for residents because they would have to plan for a long drive and a day centred around important clinic visits outside their own hometown.
Dement noted, it has become even more essential for elderly patients or patients with underlying health conditions to be able to remain close to home during COVID-19.
“We knew there was a gap there. Looking at Cochrane it’s a fast-growing town and it totally made sense to come in and provide services,” Diment said. “We made this a clinic with room to grow.”
Excitement for the clinic opening has been growing, Diment said, explaining they received calls every day from Cochranites asking when the facility would open.
“We would expect that in the next six months most of the exam rooms will be full,” Diment said.
She added they expect to see patients from rural areas surrounding Cochrane including Canmore, Banff, Cremona and Bragg Creek.
It has been exciting preparing to open Cochrane Mayfair because it is the first imaging clinic in the town, Diment said.
“As somebody who lives in a small town myself and has always lived in small towns, I know how important it is to have local services,” Diment said.
The clinic has been a long time in the making, she said, and was in the works before the COVID-19 pandemic arrived in Alberta.
At Mayfair, they have been implementing and practicing all health protocols put in place by the province to ensure patients can have safe visits. Diment added they learned from other clinics in the chain before the Cochrane facility opened its doors. Mayfair has made a massive investment in personal protective equipment, health protocols and sanitization equipment since March.
For those that visit the clinic, appointment times have been significantly extended and before someone enters the room for their exam it will have had a deep clean to meet Alberta Health Services public health protocols. The same sanitization process is completed before each client visits.
“There’s a whole set of process that we’ve laid down and we’ve really been sticking to those and practicing those for about eight months,” Diment said. “Patient safety is the most important thing right now.”
To book an appointment drop by the centre or call Mayfair central booking at 403-777-3000. An imaging request from a health care practitioner is needed to book an exam.
The clinic is open from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. Monday to Friday.
