Archive

Recovering from the shutdown, local pedorthist welcomes new clients

July 10, 2020   ·   0 Comments

By Brian Lockhart

The COVID-19 pandemic caught a lot of business owners by surprise and when the province mandated a shut-down, those businesses were left scrambling to find a plan that would work to keep them alive.

During the second phase of re-opening some business are back up and running although their business model has changed to reflect the requirements of social distancing and sanitization.

BioPed Footcare in Orangville had just opened its doors when the order came that they must close shop due to the pandemic.

“We opened the last week of February,” explained Julie Thibeault, manager of Bioped Footcare and a Canadian Certified Pedorthist. “It was the middle of March when we got new from our colleges that were being recommended to be closing. We were allowed to be open on an emergency basis, so we closed our doors officially but we were still answering phone calls. Since we were still a new business we didn’t have a full client base so were weren’t seeing a lot of patients on an emergency basis. We worked like that from mid March to when we re-opened at the beginning of June.”

Once re-opening, the clinic faced a challenge to ensure they were following all recommended provincial guidelines.

When you are dealing with patients on a personal basis, extra measures have to be taken to keep everyone safe.

“Once we were back in the clinic I had to make sure we had PPE, signage, and followed all the protocols,” Ms. Thibeault explained. “By the first week of June we were pretty much ready to fully open. Of course right now, fully open means a locked front door, and we’re working by appointment only to manage people coming in and out, so we’re not really fully ‘doors open.’ We’re all wearing masks, self screening patients before they come in, and trying to do all forms digitally.”

The sudden shut-down in March put a damper on what the clinic had hoped to do to let the community know their services were available.

“We were just trying to get that momentum going,” Ms. Thibeault said. “At the end of February, we were letting people know we were open and to come in and check us out. We actually had a grand opening planned for the last week of March. And of course it was all cancelled.”

She added that moving forward the clinic plans to bring on more people to deliver services to the community.

“Obviously want want to have more staff to offer more services, and that was another we had to put on pause in March. This past week we have brought a new foot care nurse onto our staff and we’re really excited to be offering more services to our patients. The goal here for us is to really be a one-stop shop for people who have lower limb concerns.”

A pedorthist is a professional who has specialized training to modify footwear and employ supportive devices to address conditions which affect the feet and lower limbs.

“As a pedorthist my focus is the structure of the lower leg,” Ms. Thibeault explained. “One of main things we do here is make custom orthotics. I have a lab on-site so I can make everything here. That allows our turn-around time to be much faster.”

BioPed Footcare is located at 88 First Street, directly behind the Tim Horton’s.

Readers Comments (0)