A decade in, Calgary father glad he joined health clinic
Brady Lewis’s family didn’t want to be “just a number” in the public health system any longer.
That is why the family of four, without any specific health concerns, became one of the first to join the then “pioneering” field of private medicine in Calgary, more than a decade ago.
He, his wife and two children (their then 13-yearold daughter and 11-yearold son) became clients of Preventous Collaborative Health, looking for quicker and better access to health care.
“It was a culmination of things. You go into the doctor if something is wrong (in the public system) and they can’t get you out of there quick enough,” says the 51-year-old Alberta sales manager for a commercial flooring company.
“We decided to take our business elsewhere.”
Ten years later, Preventous is still the family’s primary health care provider.
That does not mean they have opted out of the public health-care system, but that they have had extra support along the way.
“When my daughter broke her arm, Rohan (Dr. Rohan Bissoondath, one of the clinic’s founders) was at the hospital to support her and when my wife was rushed to hospital, he was there,” says the widower who lost his wife after that brief illness six years ago.
Lewis says the whole family has made use of the range of services provided at Preventous over the years — from health, wellness and fitness assessments to nutrition counselling. And one of the best things about being part of the clinic, says Lewis, is having the ability to call for an appointment that occurs that same day and lasts long enough to get a solution to any issue.
“We wanted to be able to spend a few moments being able to explain the problem,” he says.
Lewis says he has always been in good health, but was looking for wellness support that was proactive instead of reactive.
At Preventous, he says the concierge style of health care means getting the kind of support you need, when you need it.
“If I woke up this morning and wanted to see my doctor, I would get in today.”
During his children’s school years, there was always something going on in addition to school work, with a multitude of sports or dance activities. And if his children needed to see a doctor, “it didn’t work to see one next week.”
There are also the other services such as massage therapists and physiotherapists that the family tapped into over the years.
And Lewis today sees the continued connection with Preventous not as an opting out of the everyday public system, as much as it is a stake in his future well-being.
“What I pay Preventous is an investment in my health.”
Lewis trains in the Preventous gym, something encouraged by the clinic because, while he rides his bike actively in warmer months, it was too easy to avoid activity during the colder ones.
“I am more active now than I was 10 years ago.”
He says his son — now a member of a golf team at a university in the United States — actively used the Preventous fitness facilities as well.
Over the years, Lewis says others have asked his advice about moving to private medicine.
“People ask me about my experiences and 10 years later I have nothing but good things to say about Preventous.”
As a manager responsible for sales around the province, Lewis travels quite a bit for work. Maintaining good health throughout those travels is obviously important.
But his association with Preventous and the clinic’s proactive approach to wellness is also critical to his love of experiencing other locales in his non-working life.
“There are things I want to see and do — and I want to be healthy doing them.”