Perth-Wellington MPP John Wilkinson and MPP Sault St. Marie colleague David Orazietti hosted a round table consultation on proposed improvements to the underserviced area program last week in Drayton.
Prior to that meeting, Wilkinson said since 1969, Ontario created the program to assist Northern Ontario and rural communities. Communities could apply for that funding to help recruit doctors.
But now, Wilkinson said, a review of those programs indicates that funding was not getting to Northern Ontario or rural areas. As well, funds are going to areas “which are not particularly rural,” he said.
“Currently only 20 per cent of the funding from the underserviced area program is reaching the most rural and northern communities of our province." As a result, a draft proposal is in the works to deal with the issue.
He said the Drayton meeting invited three groups of stakeholders – physicians, hospitals, and municipalities. Together they examined the implications of the proposed changes for the riding.
Participants were encouraged to comment on ways to improve physician recruitment and retention, both components of the province’s program.
Wilkinson said there has been considerable work in the local area to recruit physicians and health care workers.
“I look at [the overall process] as an investment in rural Ontario, and if we can focus that funding, I think it is a good idea. I am pleased that our government is refocusing the underserviced area program to its original objective – helping northern and rural communities attract great physicians.”
He commented on Louise Marshall Hospital’s efforts in Mount Forest to secure funding for a redevelopment campaign to modernize its emergency department.
Wilkinson said individuals raised in rural areas heading to medical school are using 21st century technology. However, on graduation, if they head back to their hometown to practice, those same people may not be prepared to use equipment that is 40 years old.
“That is why it is important to invest in our rural hospitals,” he said.
He alluded to strategic redevelopment projects at both the Stratford and Listowel hospitals.
But Wilkinson said, “Over the roughly 155 hospitals in Ontario, over 100 have undergone redevelopment plans or are working on them – not just the big hospitals, but smaller ones as well.”
He said that as a rural representative he sees one of the themes of health care as being “closer to home.”
He said if that is a guiding principle, it makes the spending on rural hospitals all that more important.
The province is also proposing that all communities in Ontario, with the exceptions of Ottawa and the GTA, be able to recruit physicians with Return of Service commitments. That is a legal commitment to work in a particular community for a specified period of time.
Physicians agree to work there in exchange for either financial assistance to offset tuition costs or a postgraduate training position.
