Chatham-Kent now has a road map to be more effective at recruiting physicians.
The $100,000 for a new Physician Recruitment and Retention Task Force approved in the 2019 budget will now start in 2020 pending approval of a report going to council on Monday night. The hope is that the $100,000 in funding will continue every year to address a chronic doctor shortage across the municipality. The money would be used to attend family doctor job fairs, set up events for local medical students to advise them on opening a practice, advertising practice opportunities, and hosting potential family physicians.
"There is a great deal of marketing ongoing presently; however, it was agreed that marketing initiatives could be enhanced through both collaboration and expansion of activities," stated the report.
If approved, the Chatham-Kent Family Health Team (CK FHT) would look after and distribute the money on behalf of the other medical groups (Chatham-Kent Family Health Team, Thamesview Family Health Team, Tilbury District Family Health Team, CK Community Health Centres, and the Chatham-Kent Health Alliance) with resource support from the Erie St. Clair LHIN, HealthForce Ontario and the municipality.
Council would require a task force update every six months to measure progress.
According to Healthcare Connect, there are no doctors to refer patients to in CK and emergency department volumes for matters, such as prescription refills, that could be handled in a doctor's office are up, which has an impact on wait times in the hospital’s emergency departments.
The report also suggests a confidential physician engagement survey to know what drives family physicians to practice in CK and what their plans are. Data is also required to find out the needs and wants of CK residents in terms of their primary healthcare needs. Data suggests that 34 per cent of CK patients are served by doctors over the age of 60 and it is estimated that up to 11 doctors will retire over the next five years, which could mean a need for approximately 20 replacement physicians.
CK FHT has the largest physician and patient capacity among all the others and estimates that following physician departures, the current 7,228 orphaned patients who were once registered to a physician at one of their five sites would continue.
"While some of these patients may have found a new family physician - either within or outside CK - the lack of physicians currently accepting patients in CK, emergency department volumes, and anecdotal information suggesting that residents are without family physicians, suggests that many of these patients may still be orphaned," the report read.
Some short term ideas include hiring Nurse Practitioners to cover for doctors who retire or leave and providing financial incentives to new physicians to cover their moving expenses, setup costs, and for them to stay a set period of time.