Where have all the doctors gone?
During last week’s city council meeting, Councillor Nella Dekker put a motion on the floor to investigate the possibility of starting a physician recruitment program.
“The City of Thorold is underserved by approximately seven family physicians,” she told her fellow council members.
The initiative was met with enthusiasm from other councillors.
“This is a long time coming,” said Councillor Ken Sentance. “I’m happy we’re actually taking a step forward on this. I hope this works out. We need them badly.”
CAO Manoj Dilwaria said that the city is actively working on the issue and that’s why he and Mayor Terry Ugulini will be attending a region-wide roundtable on November 26.
“There is actually a roundtable for physician recruitment where all the mayors and CAO’s are invited,” he said. “We just want to have a standardized approach so that we’re not competing among ourselves. Hopefully at the end of it we have a program everyone agrees to and we can get more physicians to Thorold and also to Niagara.”
Councillor Henry D’Angela thinks it is important that the city also looks into available space for a doctor’s office in Thorold.
“If they don’t have a clinic to come to or they have no space to come to they’re not going to come here,” he said.
What about offering a cash incentive, asked Councillor Mike De Divitiis.
“It’s going to be tough coming into a small community,” he added. “A lot of them don’t like it. We got to sell them on the positives.”
But others think the right solution would be to find doctors-in-training in Thorold.
“There’s no point in taking doctors from other communities because then they’re just left in a bind,” said Councillor Anthony Longo. "We need to provide grants to our bright minds out there, our young students still in high school, who want to move into medicine. We need to figure out a way to give them the money and have them practice and learn medicine and then come to our community when they graduate.”
One thing everyone can agree on is that there needs to be more collaboration to bring doctors to Niagara.
“I believe collaboration with the Niagara Region is very important,” said Councillor Longo. “I’d love to have my doctor be in Thorold, but at least if I have a doctor in the region that I could travel to, I’m fortunate enough I can do that. We just need more doctors.”
A City Hall report on a physician recruitment program is set to come forward at a later date.
