Reviews of Westcoast Family Medical Clinic (Doctor)

chris warner

Great service and staff - Dr Ian McKnight is a wonderful doctor. I feel very grateful to have these guys serving our town.

a cooper

This is the worst clinic I have every been to. A year ago I was treated badly by a man doctor. I walked out thinking it was an isolated situation. Yesterday was even worse. I was called a lier by the lady doctor. Not only is it hard to open up to a stranger she made me cry then left the room. All my friends and my sister who is a nurse agreed that this is the most un professional clinic on the island. There is no way I would let anyone I care about go there.please help shut this place down so we in sooke can have a real caring place for our health needs.

A Wilson

I an online consult I was very happy with the doctor I spoke with he ordered an mri for an issue I was having and meds in the meantime ..the hospital did nothing but take an x-ray sent me away..

David Taylor

Great Clinic, family doctors. Good follow-up.

Aeriche Zamudio

The doctors are great!

John Pitts

We have lived in Sooke for around 5 years now and been to this clinic a number of times as Walk In Patients. Our Doctor retired last year and we have been on the hunt for a doctors office to call home. We have always been happy with the treatment we have received from your clinic, however the challenge we have is not being able to book an appointment other than to call that same day and "See" if there is space. Being that your practice is our Primary Care location, would that not make us patients of your doctors and therefore afford us the ability to Book an appointment weeks in advance? We don't intend on leaving Sooke anytime soon, and I would love nothing more than to have regular health checkups for me and my family. How can this be arranged?

Bjorn Lodding

Great staff and physicians.

Brenda Morie

I had great success here

GamerGirlX Inc.

Think the owner needs to know that they have a doctor working that is telling pt to go doctor hop or providence hop so please feel free to leave the owners inform for me as I do have a recording of the visit.

Emma H

I have always been treated well by the staff- everyone is friendly and I haven't had any issues in the several years I have been a patient.. It is well known there is a doctor shortage, so leaving a 1 star rating for this reason is kind of silly; It is understandable that they aren't able assess/treat every person that needs care each day in our very rapidly growing community. I am very grateful for the physicians who have chosen to practice in Sooke.

Jer Knight

Worst clinic ever. If you are sick or injured, you are better off going to the hospital. Rude staff and long waits, if you’re lucky enough to get in at all. Not sure why in this modern world, our resources are so awful. Do yourself a favour, skip this clinic. Go into Langford or Victoria. I have been turned away 10 times more than I have received help. Thanks for listing all the great things you do. Can I get a home visit? What a joke.

Corrie Cerminara

On their automated phone service it says they are open Sundays from 10-12:30 however that changed July 4th and the phone service has not been updated accordingly. Very frustrating when this is the only clinic in Sooke and thought it was open at 10 only to find out by walking and reading the sign on their door. Very unprofessional, please update your automated phone.

Dog Brindle

You'd think a booming town like Sooke, that they would have a 24 hour emergency clinic. Not very professional, so hopefully you don't get sick and need help especially on a Sunday.

Rick Lambert

Local, very busy and always try their very best.

Sooke “Meanwhile in Sooke” Wildlife Cam

Great clinic and Drs

Catherine Joyal

This clinic is Family for me ! All staff in front and all doctors are working extremely hard I am shocked to see bad comments. Where I am from there is no care for anybody and we wait until 24 hours in hospital cause all clinic are full . We are rotten spoiled here Just saying ...???? love you guys and thanks for being here for me and my mum

afro droid

Worst clinic ever do not go here they will send you away crying depending on what doctor you get most unsympathetic doctors office iv ever been to

Aces Family World

I find us patients always get very frusterated with dr offices. But you have to remember...they are people too. So many complain about not enough hours sunday is closed. I agree. But i also know that it isnt your doctors fault. There just isnt enough dr out there. So before you get pissed at your dr...think and remember she/he is a person too with a job that can be hard cause so many people complain and forget to say thank you! Thank you for your support. Thank you for your care! And thank you for taking the time to see me and listen to me! Can you imagine working so hard to help people but all peopledo is complain and get mad. No one thanks you. No one cares about your life...cause ur there for them...to help them get better. Just remember doctors are real normal people too. They have feelings and can get sick too. They need love too! Take care and show appreciation to the ones who take care of you!

ThatsThisGuy

I don't visit the Medical Clinic that often, but when I do it's for health reasons and usually last resort! I do understand that maybe my case isn't urgent or during these times it may be stressful and what not. Although when calling in to the office I have felt the receptionist is rude on more then 1 occasion. As a client/patient I don't expect the red carpet but at least common metal respect.

Angela Dykman

Always professional and helpful. Dr Vally is awesome

Kris Waygood

Both my son and i were very ill, we had the option of driving 45 minutes and hope to be seen before 2pm closing at one of the langford clinics. Or not drive at all and go to this, the closest clinic. Before deciding I called and the voicemail message said the walk in would open at 5pm. When we arrived a sign on the door said it was closed. Now our options are the hospital and wait all night or wait til morning and go into langford. Had the staff kept their voicemail message up to date I wouldn't have waited and headed straight into langford

Andy V

My family doctor is great, but receptionists are very rude and don't listen and respect clients. Just got off the phone from talking to a receptionists and it was a terrible experience. If my family doctor wasn't so great I would never come back to them.

Karen Fonger

Dr Kluge is incredibly knowledgeable. He does an excellent job of answering all my questions in a kind and professional manner. He has solved many of my long term medical issues even problems that my other doctors were not able to figure out for years. The staff at the clinic, while always very busy, does a superb job of taking care of everyone fairly and professionally.

Jeff “Humanaut” Welch

Fast friendly service.

Joel Roy

I’ve called every 5 minutes for 55 minutes and has been user busy every time. Why don’t you have a multi line phone system so we can wait on hold and save the place in line to talk to the next receptionist available?

Karen Pepper

If the new doctor at Westcoast Family Medical is an indication of the up and coming medical practitioners then I hope I never need a doctor again. She treated me like I was just a non-entity, reading off a script about what I could expect; e.g no annual medical because they don’t have statistical data to support their relevance, 10 minutes max per appointment, dramatic changes to medications that I have been on for years. She was cold, abrasive and certainly not friendly. And, when I called to tell the clinic I did not want to be a patient I thought the professional thing to do would be to provide some feedback. Instead I was brushed off and told how there were hundreds of patients waiting for doctors and she hung up on me. I love living in Sooke but I would rather die than step foot in that facility again!!

Leah Smith

I met this doctor after moving to Sooke last year. I had a life threatening illness from a pregnancy. Before I moved I spoke with the receptionist about making sure that they had good doctors and she assured me they did. Dr. McKnight was the meanest person I have ever met. I had postpartum depression and anxiety cause I almost lost my life giving birth. I also had Placenta Accreta that I was dealing with and had anxiety about it as it could of killed me at any moment. I was still working with a doctor in the city for surgeries for the Accreta. Dr Mcknight told me that depression and anxiety were all in my head. I asked him for a refill on my anti anxiety meds and he told me I needed to go to rehab. He told me if I come back to his clinic he would make sure I would get the same treatment. He never looked at my Accreta as he said he only has ten mins. He put me in touch with mental health. I got a call from them two days later and they asked if I was ok and I said no. They also said they have a lot of complaints about him all the time and to stay away from him. He should lose his license. I ended up moving away from Sooke and going back to my old family doctor. Every person I tell this story to they are discussed about it. Dr McKnighy you have no right to abuse your power as a doctor. You’re a very angry person and I suggest you get some help and a new job that doesn’t involve caring for people

Chloe Roberts

Very helpful and accommodating on short notice!! Such great reception staff

Holly Daron

I am updating my review now two years on, as I see the clinic made another reply insinuating I'd done there for Narcotics LOL. I visited two years ago in the middle if a very sever mental health crisis. I was ALREADY taking ativan, an unpleasant experience, and was having a reaction to a newly prescribed SSRI. Such a severe reaction I had actually stopped taking the Ativan. I saw Dr. Forsberg who was dismissive and disinterested in my suffering. Her helpful advice was to "Try diet and exercise" if I was depressed. She advised she didn't want to "give me more drugs" which wasn't my goal either .What I needed was compassion and ultimately, new SSRIs. I'm updating to 2 stars because I'm no longer just irritated at the poor care I received, but genuinely concerned about other patients who might go there for mental health help. I did see a Dr. in a reasonable amount of time, however it was ultimately the opposite of helpful. And I am not looking to just write a scathing review, but to connect with others who find themselves in the same shoes I was in two years ago. My first review, the clinic replied that I'd gone there to seek narcotics (that I already had, so obviously not), and when I updated again and called it out they changed it to simply "letting others know they can't prescribe narcotic medication". What they have never done is apologize for seriously mishandling a mental health crisis, right in front of them. If it weren't for my amazing support system, the apathetic treatment would have set me back so far on my journey to recovery. Two years later I am in a much better place, on much better meds, thanks to a Dr. who listened to understand me. If anyone reaches out to a medical professional and gets rebuffed be it here or other places, know that that's a sign something is wrong with the Doctor. Not with you, and you can and will get the help you need, you just can't give up on yourself. There are lots of compassionate medical professionals out there who are genuine in their desire to help their patient overcome their health issues, even if they're invisible.

Mike Menard

I too share Brett`s issues with bookings at the clinic, however, I'm very surprised at the comments of the "owner" of the clinic misconstruing Brett's comments, he, as others are upset at the sporadic booking procedures and not the clinicians who do the work. Shame on you for suggesting that.

bubkuk thunderfoot

This clinic can be good if you can actually get through but is fraught with technical issues, and is understaffed for the amount of people in Sooke that still don't have access to a family doctor. Not exactly the clinics fault, there's just not medical staff to go around these days. This situation makes patients extremely frustrated in an all ready really frustrating situation where many of us can't get access to a consistent doctor so we can get our medical issues looked at. It makes staff short tempered, doctors that will treat you like you are wasting their time because your issue isn't yet life or death. Not pointing fingers at any one individual here, but something needs to change with this clinic. Today, I tried to get an appointment on behalf of my mother, whom takes medication for Alzheimer's. She is out of refills, however now two days of trying to get an appointment, with the website booking and phone system failing us, we need to now scramble to find another walkin clinic in the city that can take us short notice. Not cool West Coast Family Clinic, get your system figured out so nobody gets left behind like your clinic is currently doing. A new system that has been put in place for booking appointments online for the clinic and may be a new phone system too but is step back from what the clinic was using before. I was given an email to enroll with their new system, but within a very short amount of time any links to were invalid and/or expired. You can sign in as a guest, but you can't create an account for their system if you missed that short window of opportunity. The clinic generally takes the approach of you snooze you lose. Your online booking software basically fails to load in the mornings so you can't book. Isn't a browser issue as it happens in Chrome Edge and Firefox. It is likely throughput overload, stalling out like your trying to get tickets to a concert the morning bookings open. Your phone system is worse. If you are lucky, the system can manage to keep you on hold long enough without constantly disconnecting you that you can leave a message. 50/50 if you get a call back. I think this clinic could be good if our provincial government would actually address the staffing and funding shortages. The bandaid solutions that are being applied to this clinic just isn't enough. The clinic had an open enrolment to take on new patients last year, but didn't communicate it to the community, you needed to stumble across it on their website and if you didn't in the short amount of time the enrolment was open you're SOL. This clinic is a prime example of the sad state BC's health system is in.

L Canada

Absolutely HORRIBLE. Male Doctor rude, insulting. Unbelievable that a Dr. is that ignorant and mean. STAY AWAY- IF THERE WAS A WAY TO REPORT THIS MAN I WOULD.

Brett Christian

I have tried on about 4 different occasions to access medical services here and have been turned away each time. You need to be the first to call and are often filled up within the first 30 minutes of operating hours. It's honestly very upsetting that the people of Sooke have such inadequate access to health care professionals. I understand this establishment is trying it's best to provide adequate service with limited resources but it's honestly unacceptable.

Lonnie Chekerda

Our family has been very happy with the care we have received at the Westcoast Family Medical Clinic. The front desk staff are always courteous and efficient. Our doctors are very professional and strive find the best solution for any medical issues.

Stephanie Soderman

Got turned away with my 5yr son. Shallow breathing, cant talk and high fever. Clinic is full for the day at 9:30am

Sheila Dobie

My entire family has had nothing but the absolute best care from our physicians at Westcoast Family Medical Clinic. I'm very thankful to be a patient in this facility and I make sure I tell them on my way out every single time. Any one who has had issue with the doctors or staff may want to think about speaking to them the way that they would like to be spoken to.

Kate Doucet

I felt very welcomed, staff were friendly and efficient. Highly recommended!

Rita Rieper

You have to wait 15 min bevor your call is answered if you are lucky. Or you only get the answering machine after that time. And some of the staff is short and unfriendly on the phone. This started after they had closed their office when the COVID broke out. Before that time they had provided a good and friendly service to their patients. I am so disappointed

Reeps

Great service, every time I visited the doctors seemed to know exactly the right remedy. Front staff also very kind and helpful!

Leah Richards

Dr. Pocock & staff are the best. They have to old way of bedside manner with a new age attitude. They truly are a caring bunch! Very efficient.

Barbara Sidsworth

I just love you guys. Thanks for everything you do

Jim Bo

Absolutely careless people running this clinic, from receptionist to the main Doctors. Talking about a hospital is just mental... We don't even have a proper clinic. Lets first get a real clinic up and running then think about a HOSPITAL! The reviews speak for themselves. Only good reviews are from actual patients of this "walk in clinic".

Shel's Kitchen

I am not impressed with the after hours "Dr. On Call" service, or lack of service. My father has been a patient of one of the docs there for nearly 30 years. The doctor on call refused to see him for an urgent (non emergency) issue today. He is well known to the clinic and is prone to pneumonia and needs to get on antibiotics right away. He would have been okay to get to Sooke but not drive himself any further to a clinic in town or a hospital and has no one there to get him further. Now he has to wait until tomorrow to call first thing to get a same day appt. Reasonable for someone half his age but he is 90 and every minute counts to prevent severe and rapid progression of pneumonia. Last year he wound up in hospital with hallucinations! All this doc had to do was meet him, have a brief scan over over his file history, listen to his chest, and send him to the pharmacy. When I used to live in Sooke, the doctor on call was always available for these kinds of things. Not impressed. My Dad is an otherwise content, active, and healthy gentleman who is rarely sick. I know that if it had been his regular doc or my Mom's (God rest her) previous doc, they would have seen my Dad no problem. Sooke is a remote area with a 1 road access. It takes a good 45-60 min to get to the nearest medical attention. When an ambulance is not required and yet it's urgent, would you really send a 90 yr old off on that path? I have worked in the medical field as an MOA for nearly 30 years now and this is just not acceptable.

Kelsey Jennings

I wanted to try a local walk-in clinic but received nothing but judgement and horrendous service from the front desk. I didn't even get as far as seeing a doctor as I refused to be spoken to with attitude and disrespect in what is supposed to be a 'professional' environment. Aside from the horrible attitudes, right when I walked in before I had a chance to speak the two receptionists took it upon themselves to assume my reason for seeing the doctor which made me feel very self conscious and hurt as they chuckled between themselves. Even If I had chose to go through with seeing a doctor there was apparently no one in til 12 despite being open at 730am. After my experience today I would rather travel into town than return to this place.

Matt Barbour

The reception takes lunch a half hour early and comes back a half hour late. They also start answering the phone a half hour after opening. They seem to have destain for the people on the other end of the line as you can pretty much hear the eye rolling. This was before the pandemic I might add, it's become worse since.Me personally I was in a car accident that left me with cognitive problems and metal hardware throughout my my body. My doctor is really short with me and seems to rush me out the office. I once asked to be put on medication to help me with concentration. He told me that if I came in early for a refill, or found out to be selling or giving it to other people he would no longer be my doctor. I was also told to buy neproxin from thier pharmacy wich is just Aleave at like five times the price. This place is run like a business and if you want the best care for yourself and your family members go somewhere else.

James Newbury

I think when people are complaining about the staff, they're not complaining about the doctors. They're complaining about the secretaries at front desk that are feeling tired or stressed but none the less forget while THEY are working at that moment, no one else is there other than for medical purposes. don't let your job jade you, and treat elders with respect. the doctors are great here btw.