Children’s Aid to shut down medical clinic that serves 290 kids, citing budget deficit [Video]

The Children’s Aid Society of London and Middlesex (CASLM) will close its medical clinic because of budget pressures, a savings of $260,000 that some fear will hurt the 290 kids who rely on it for primary health care. 

The clinic has operated for 55 years and will close effective April 25, Children’s Aid officials wrote in a statement. No one from the agency was available for an interview. 

“The closure of a long-time program that supports primary care for some of our community’s most vulnerable children is difficult,” the agency’s executive director Chris Tremeer said in a written statement. 

The closure comes as the Children’s Aid Society faces a $6.9 million deficit, and 15 years of pressure from the province to shut it down and transfer primary health care services to health ministry-funded community partners, officials said.

It follows on the heels of the elimination of its family visitation program, announced in June, which offered a space where families could come visit …