Filling a vital void in many communities
Susan Nikkila runs Essence Medical with a big heart
Determination. Strength. Heart.
Susan Nikkila, who owns all six locations of Essence Medical across the province, demonstrates this and more through her practice, proving anything is possible if you put your mind to it.
“I had the life of hell and I switched it around for myself,” Nikkila says.
Emerging from a bad situation, she has also helped many others. She’s a masters prepared nurse practitioner and owns a franchise company.
She opened the first location, Essence Medical Grand Falls-Windsor, in October 2018. In the middle of COVID, she made her first call to St. John’s to expand into a franchise. In just 10 months, she had new locations in Gander, Corner Brook, St. John’s, Labrador City and Goose Bay, which is a satellite site.
The clinics specialize in aesthetic medicine such as Botox, Dysport and fillers, top-of-the-line laser services. She also offers more advanced procedures.
“I am the only person, surgeons included, certified and licenced to perform nonsurgical aesthetic gynecology in all of Atlantic Canada,” she says, of the services in Gander and Grand Falls-Windsor.
Laura Bussey, RN at Essence Medical Grand Falls-Windsor, is proud to be part of the company.
“You can get caught up in the glamour and the idea of what you see on TV or the internet but working with this company is not like that at all,” Bussey says, adding a lot of aesthetics is for medical issues.
“When a woman sits down and tells you how it’s changed their life afterwards, I get goosebumps even talking about it.”
Free women’s health talks are also offered once a month at both central locations.
On days in between, Nikkila offers primary health care. People can call and make an appointment, in person or virtual, for a cost or watch for free clinics.
“I charge $75 for a visit but then when I do my give-back health-care days as a volunteer it really helps those people who don’t have $75 to give … It has gone over so extremely well that I don’t see the point in stopping.”
She says she will continue with free clinics, hopefully once a month in Gander. The free clinic will be posted in advance on Essence Medical Gander Facebook page.
According to a recently released letter from the Newfoundland and Labrador Medical Association (NLMA) president Kris Luscombe, public polling released by Narrative Research on behalf of the NLMA shows 26 per cent of the population do not have a family physician. This represents more than 136,000 people without a family doctor.
“Family medicine in Newfoundland and Labrador is facing a crisis due to physician shortages, closures of rural emergency departments and a workforce struggling with increasing demands and mounting overhead pressures,” it states.
The NLMA and the government of Newfoundland and Labrador released a signed and shared agenda to advance priorities within family medicine.
“If something happens to me tomorrow, I don’t have a doctor,” Nikkila says.
“My husband doesn’t have a doctor. My parents don’t have a doctor. Nobody in my family that I can think of has a doctor. It is bad.”
Bussey has referred people to the Gander clinic for appointments if they don’t mind driving.
“You can wait all day in emerge or you can drive an hour to see somebody.”
The clinics give back in other ways as well. They raise money for the food bank, and every community where there is an Essence Medical they give back to women’s and children’s shelters in that town – Status of Women Central in Grand Falls-Windsor, Cara Transition House in Gander, Iris Kirby in St. John’s, Hope Haven in Labrador City and Libra House in Goose Bay.
“I do give back to women and children escaping domestic violence because that was my history,” Nikkila says. “I was a high school dropout at 17 years old, never finished Grade 11. I was pregnant at
17. I had to run out with no shoes on my feet more times than you can imagine.
“That is why it is important to me when it comes to shelters because I’ve been in the situation where it’s like there’s no way out of this. (You) can’t possibly see bright at the end of this. But I did … and it is important to me that I show other women that yes you can and I will show you how.”