As smaller Ontario communities struggle to attract and retain health care professionals in a competitive market, they've got a new strategy.
As small communities across Ontario struggle to recruit doctors and nurses, one town has landed on a strategy that appears poised for success: giving them “a bag of money up front.”, Ont., where local authorities say they will give an $80,000 signing bonus to any family physician who agrees to work in the town for at least five years.
Stone explained that Huntsville faced urgency to act. With waitlists for doctors growing longer, and several working doctors due to retire, almost a third of the town’s 21,000 people risk not having a family doctor, he said. “You pretty much have to be the person that the successful candidate says is the source of referral and then we will contact you that way and we will provide the incentive,” VanSlyke said.
While such programs have existed for decades in some rural and northern communities, they have noticeably accelerated since the pandemic. But he argued there are better ways to address rural doctor shortages, including student debt forgiveness tied to years of service in a community, or introducing medical students to the benefits of rural work through short-term programs while in medical school.He also said the province needs to do more to address the gaps caused by its per capita health funding.
He also backs a team-based care system, where nurses, pharmacists, physiotherapists and others work more collaboratively to support doctors.
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