The Altona Clinic will be temporarily losing the services of one of its physicians this fall.

The College of Physicians and Surgeons of Manitoba has suspended Dr. Tahseen Mahdi from practicing medicine from September to the end of the year for an incident that occurred back in 2013 between him and another physician, prior to his arriving in Altona.

The clinic currently operates with a team of four physicians, which will be reduced to three by September.

That puts the community and area in a bit of pinch, according to clinic board co-chair Don Wiebe.

"Dr. Mahdi has a good practice here. We have four physicians, which works well for this region, and with a sufficient number of doctors you can also have predictable emergency services. So, our staff is making the appropriate calls and setting up important meetings in an effort to find contingencies to address this inconvenience for a short period of time."

Wiebe said they will specifically look for ways to fill the temporary vacancy, and according to Wiebe, there are a number of options that will be considered.

"There are some doctors that have a part-time practice that may be available. That's something we've tried before in terms of covering some emergency situations. There may be some retired (doctors) from across the region who may be able to help us for a bit. All those are options we need to explore," said Wiebe.

Wiebe added, its all about using the resources that are available in the region, and they hope to get some help with that from the RHA.