Council has agreed the township will contribute $10,000 for local health professional recruitment and retention in 2017.
Council agreed to maintain what has become an annual contribution after hearing from the Minto Mapleton Health Professional Recruitment Committee at the Jan. 10 meeting.
Committee chair Shirley Borges advised council the committee continues to work on “strategies to address gaps” in local health care provision.
Borges, who has been chairing the committee for the past 10 years noted the area now benefits from “a regular rotation of medical students” – from McMaster University who spend two months working at local health centres.
She credited Dr. Christine Peterkin of the Minto-Mapleton Family Health Team as one of the catalysts making the program a success.
“That would be, I would say, our most successful recruitment strategy in the past decade,” she said.
The establishment of the new Minto Rural Health Centre, a clinic located on the Palmerston and District Hospital property is also an asset to recruitment efforts, Bores said.
“We know our new recruits want to work in a team-based environment,” she pointed out.
Borges noted a recent success story was the recruitment of a past resident who will work with Dr. Christopher Cressey at the new Minto facility beginning this spring.
Recruiter Allison Armstrong
Allison Armstrong noted that even though the new physician will be stationed in Palmerston, they “will help out in Mapleton as well,” with obstetrics and other areas.
Armstong agreed the residency program has been vital to local recruitment efforts as it gives many medical students their first exposure to rural medicine.
“They come and they don’t know anything about rural medicine and then … they experience it and they want to do it,” Armstrong said.
“We’re basically having this opportunity to put Mapleton on the map by having these residents come to our community,” said Peterkin. She pointed out that most of the students have no knowledge of the area before their residencies, but become very enthusiastic after they arrive.
“This is a great place. We’ve just got to get them here,” she said.
