KENILWORTH – A request to increase the amount of funding this year for physician and health care professional recruitment in Wellington North is being granted by council.
Taxpayer dollars in the sum of $10,000 are provided annually to North Wellington Health Care’s (NWHC) recruitment committee from the township’s Grants and Donations Community Development Program.
The Mount Forest and Area Health Professional Recruitment Committee uses the money to cover everything from advertising to furnishing housing for medical residents completing placements here.
But this year recruiter and NWHC communications manager Alison Armstrong, and Mount Forest Family Health Team executive director and committee chair Suzanne Trivers, are requesting an additional $5,000, citing a “high need for health care services and a shortage of available staff.”
An influx of people without access to primary care doctors have inundated local emergency departments with relatively routine asks or issues that could have been addressed at the primary care level, Trivers told the Advertiser by phone.
The question NWHC is trying to address, she said, is: “How do we manage the number of people that are seeking primary care support in our community?”
The answer begins with recruiting not only more doctors, but also more health care professionals, such as nurses, to become part of a team-centred approach to caring for residents’ health.
Councillor Steve McCabe, who is the council-appointed member on the committee, and routinely champions the committee’s work at council meetings, told the newspaper the cost of recruitment efforts has gone up.
The councillor said although he’s cognizant of the outsize demand on taxpayer dollars this year, spending $15,000 is a wise decision.
“They can do so much with so little,” he said of the committee and the money.
The township is in competition with larger urban areas which roll out a proverbial red carpet to entice new doctors, McCabe said, so rural areas must do whatever they can to stand out.
“I can’t imagine not having a doctor, or not having access to a health care worker if it’s needed,” McCabe said, calling the shortage of health care professionals a “massive issue” for growing rural communities.
Recruitment efforts
Much of the additional money being requested will go toward commissioning a locally-produced video promoting the community to health care workers.
The video, mirroring a similar one produced for Minto and Mapleton, would be shared online, at trade shows, and with medical students.
Last year, an in-house social media campaign was launched pitching NWHC’s “deliberately different” slogan.
It featured images of current staff and was published primarily on LinkedIn and Facebook.
A new recruitment website was also launched last year, seeking to promote the benefits of living and working in north Wellington and rural communities.
Another house where physicians and nurses can stay was purchased by the hospital network last year.
There are community site visits, free swag given to medical students, and a renewed career fair is being launched.
Banners have also been printed and will be displayed at medical school events.
Attracting new talent
The recruitment committee, Trivers said, wants to expose more medical residents and students to rural hospitals in the area.
Current doctors are working with their associated schools, such as McMaster and Toronto universities, to connect with students.
The committee is also aligned with the Rural Ontario Medical Program to connect with potential candidates.
But not all people are motivated by, or attracted to, the same things.
The trick for the committee is finding health care professionals attracted to what north Wellington has to offer.
There are currently two interested medical students the committee is working to attract by providing one-on-one, focused attention.
If someone is interested, Trivers says the committee will “bend over backwards” to ensure they’re accommodated here.
Challenges to recruitment
It appears to Trivers that more medical students are focusing on sub-specialties rather than family medicine — be it because of money, prestige, or structure, or having observed the burden placed on the shoulders of primary care physicians throughout the pandemic.
Regardless, it presents a challenge in responding to the need for primary care doctors.
Trivers assuages the heavy work schedule of local doctors, who not only provide primary care but staff hospitals too, by promoting NWHC’s team-based approach, including staff who can respond to patients holistically with other resources such as dietitians.
“We’re lucky in Wellington County, because we’re saturated in team-based care,” Trivers said.
The College of Family Physicians is also proposing to increase the length of family medicine residencies (the final stage before certification) from two to three years — and at that point, some students may choose another specialty altogether.
If the change goes forward (by 2027 at the earliest) it will mean residents are around at local hospitals for longer, but when they can be brought on as fully-certified physicians is prolonged.
‘Critical’ funding
To fund the increased ask, township economic development officer Dale Small proposed council rejig its usual funding practice and look to Wellington County’s Business Retention and Expansion Program, which provides flexible economic project funding.
Small suggested $5,000 come from the township’s Grants and Donations Community Development Program (the usual funding source) with the remaining $10,000 to come from the Business Retention and Expansion Program.
Council agreed with Small’s suggestions, ultimately leaving more left over to fund this year’s successful township grant applicants.
Trivers is grateful to the township for its support, calling it “critical.”
“Our budgets, as health care organizations, don’t have a line item for this,” she explained.
“Their support shows they understand the importance of having strong health care services to the well-being of the overall community.”
With the first aspect of Small’s plan approved by council, the remaining $5,000 portion will be formally approved at an April 17 meeting, when Small brings forward recommendations on what organizations council should support with township grants.
