The following message was circulated electronically November 1, 2021:

We regret to advise that your current family physician, Dr. Kaustubh Bal, will be taking an indefinite leave of absence from family medicine for personal reasons. Accordingly, unless you take one of the further actions outlined in the document below:

Between today and December 31, 2021, Dr. Bal will continue to be your family physician and will be available as required.
As of December 31, 2021, Dr. Bal will not be your family physician, your file with Magenta Health will be closed, and you will not be able to access care from any other Magenta Health physician

Please read on for your options if you wish to transfer to another Magenta Health family physician. All four of the below options can be accessed at the following link 8PM November 5, 2021: https://magentahealth.ca/dr-bal-departure We are sending this information out in advance to give everyone a fair opportunity to choose from the below options when the time comes.

Your first option is to transfer to Dr. Marco Lo as of December 1, 2021. He sees patients out of 625 Queen St. E., the same location as Dr. Bal. He is not requiring that transferred patients have an intake with him. Instead, the first 50 individuals who sign up with Dr. Lo will be automatically transferred over December 1, 2021 without any further action.
Your second option is to transfer to Dr. Meera Nathwani as of December 1, 2021. She sees patients out of 1874 Queen St. E., a different location from Dr. Bal. She is not requiring that transferred patients have an intake with her. Instead, the first 50 individuals who sign up with Dr. Nathwani will be automatically transferred over without any further action.
Your third option is to transfer to Dr. Anne Mullen Grey as of December 1, 2021. She sees patients out of 1874 Queen St. E., a different location from Dr. Bal. She is not requiring that transferred patients have an intake with her. Instead, the first 30 individuals who sign up with Dr. Mullen Grey will be automatically transferred over without any further action.
Your final option is to transfer to any other Magenta Health physician, at any clinic location, that is accepting patients in the ordinary course, but an intake appointment will be required before you are officially transferred. The transparent and truthful advice is that there will not be sufficient intake availability with physicians accepting patients at Riverside - 625 Queen St. E. - to absorb all of Dr. Bal’s existing patients by December 31, 2021.

If you’re not able to have an intake by December 31, 2021, regardless of the reason, unfortunately Dr. Bal will not be your family physician, your file with Magenta Health will be closed, and you will not be able to access care from any other Magenta Health physician. To be clear, you will still be able to have an intake on or after January 1, 2022, and again becoming a patient of a Magenta Health physician.

If you are unable to have an intake due to a lack of physician availability, we sincerely apologize in advance. The clinic has tried, unsuccessfully, for some time to find a solution that ensures no lapse in care for any individual. Unfortunately, no direct replacement for Dr. Bal could be recruited, and the existing Magenta Health physician team does not have the capacity to absorb all existing patients overnight.

Dr. Bal wishes to express his honour to have had the chance to care for those currently in his practice; he looks forward to continuing for the next few months, until December 31, 2021.

We will update this page (https://www.magentahealth.ca/blog/2021/11/1/important-notice-for-patients-of-dr-kaustubh-bal) with more information and answers to frequently asked questions as they arise.

Sincerely,
Magenta Health & Dr. Kaustubh Bal