Uhn and Toronto Public Library launch one mobile clinic at Sanderson branch
uhn and the Toronto Public Library have started placing mobile health clinics outside branches in Toronto, beginning at the Sanderson branch near Dundas and Bathurst. The one clinic now operating is meant to bring primary care closer to people who have had trouble reaching it.
Dr. Andrew Boozary, a physician, researcher and founding executive director of the Gattuso Centre for Social Medicine at UHN, said libraries are already “places of refuge” for vulnerable folks. He said the project is meant to reach people who really need these supports and to avoid worse health outcomes or emergency department visits that could have been prevented.
Sanderson Branch Clinic
The clinic outside Sanderson will offer full physical exams, blood pressure checks, cancer care, chronic disease screening and mental health counselling. It is the first of its kind in operation under the new partnership, with only one mobile health clinic currently running.
That rollout comes as Toronto is losing publicly funded supervised consumption sites. Five have already closed since March 2025, and two more are scheduled to close on June 13. Three privately funded sites remain in the city.
Services at the Mobile Clinic
The mobile clinic is not a replacement for supervised consumption sites, and drug use and drug testing are not allowed on site. Harm reduction supplies such as sterile pipes and needles will not be handed out there.
Health-care workers on site can treat abscesses and infections, provide training in how to respond to an overdose, hand out Naloxone and prescribe opioids such as methadone to help people get off street drugs. If someone overdoses outside the clinic, staff are trained and ready to reverse overdoses.
UHN and TPL Partnership
Boozary said the project was designed to respond to housing challenges, substance use and access to primary care. The setup places care where people already go, rather than asking them to find a separate clinic first.
For a reader who needs care and has used the library as a refuge, the immediate change is simple: one mobile health clinic is now at Sanderson, and more library-based clinics are planned under a partnership that is already operating.
