A program that helps rural and northern Ontario hospitals avoid temporary ER closures is set to expire at the end of the month, with no signal from the government as to whether it will be extended, made permanent or simply end.
A program that helps rural and northern Ontario hospitals avoid temporary ER closures is set to expire at the end of the month, with no signal from the government as to whether it will be extended, made permanent or simply end. Many of the province’s more isolated hospitals rely on doctors from urban areas filling shifts on what is known as a locum basis , and the Temporary Locum Program pays them a premium as an incentive.
Rural and northern hospitals have said the program has helped them keep their emergency department doors open as they struggle with shortages of local doctors, but its future is uncertain after the current expiry date of March 31. “We are getting dangerously close to that April 1st, when we'll be without that incentive for locums,” said Tim Vine, CEO of North Shore Health Network, which has three sites between Sault Ste. Marie and Sudbury.The province established the COVID-19 Temporary Summer Locum Program during the pandemic, and it expired last March 31 before the government renewed it to Sept. 30, dropping the COVID-19 from the program titl
Ontario Hospitals Rural Northern ER Closures Locum Basis Temporary Locum Program Doctors Incentive Shortages Expiry Date COVID-19
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