HQ Toronto, a new medical centre situated at 790 Bay St, is set to open its doors on the 22nd of July 2022.
The medical center will serve cis men who have sex with men, trans people and non-binary individuals. Unlike other sexual health clinics in the city and province, HQ Toronto will offer physical and sexual health care, mental health care as well as community and social programming, all under one roof.
“In Ontario and Canada and probably the rest of the world, we are really bad at siloing off the various parts of health care. You go to a sexual health clinic and say you also want to talk about mental health and they say, that’s unfortunate, let me refer you to somebody else, and then you will wait six weeks and hopefully the other place will take care of you. That’s not what will happen at HQ Toronto,” said Dr. Kevin Woodward, HQ’s medical director.
In addition, Dr. Woodward said what makes the clinic truly innovative is the speed and efficiency with which it will offer sexual health testing and treatment, as well as mental health support citing that the aim is to get patients who are coming for HIV or STI testing in and out of the clinic within 15 or 20 minutes, with results back to the patient by text or email the same day or the next day and treatment if needed, would be offered that same day.
HQ Toronto is building its fast turnaround through a system of self-serve kiosks where individuals will swipe their health card when they arrive, fill in a questionnaire, receive printed labels, then proceed to a self-testing room, where they will collect their urine samples and do their own swabs.
Treatment will include Pre-Exposure Prophylaxis for HIV prevention, Post-Exposure Prophylaxis for those with possible exposure, and HIV treatment for those who test positive for HIV, as well as medications for STIs such as syphilis and gonorrhea, but the kiosks will be more than a gateway to quick STI and HIV testing. The initial questionnaires will include screening for substance abuse, mental health risk factors and issues, including self-harm and suicidal thoughts.
“While COVID-19 has delayed us in some ways, it’s also given us opportunities to perfect some of the ways we want to do things and has challenged our thinking about how we could offer mental health and sexual health care in different ways.
The more efficient we can make it for people, the more likely that they will access services when they need them. Right at the kiosk, we will check for suicidality and self-harm and we will respond the same day, hopefully within minutes because HIV, other STIs, and syphilis those rates tend to travel with individuals who are suffering from untreated mental health and substance abuse problems. Using the same technology that texts patients their test results, the system will text our staff to say there’s someone here who is suicidal, please come out front and get them help,” said Dr. Tim Guimond, HQ’s mental health director.
Another service offered by HQ Toronto will be community and social programming for members of the 2SLGBTQIA+ community, offered by the clinic itself or by its partner agencies who represent the Black, Two-Spirit, Latinx, Francophone, Asian and South Asian communities.
“We will have folks coming from all walks of life, representing different backgrounds. I am Black and Latino and many people in my community tend not to come out to be tested, but having social programming in a space that is already providing mental and sexual health care breaks down that barrier,” said Osmel Guerra Mayne, HQ’s director of organizational development, community and culture.
The clinic’s hours will be noon to 8 p.m, Monday to Friday, for STI testing and mental health care. Community and social programming will take place in the evenings and possibly on weekends. HQ’s core staff will start with 13 people, including five physicians, although there will be additional staff on-site from partner agencies.
