At its July 8 meeting, Lake of Bays Council agreed to continue supporting the recruitment of primary care practitioners initiative by the Muskoka Almaguin Ontario Health Team (MAOHT).
The Township committed to setting aside $15,000 during budget deliberations over the next three years to continue to support the recruitment of physicians and nurse practitioners.
MAOHT established a Health Human Resources (HHR) Task Force made up of clinical and administrative health providers. The task force has been operating for the past three years with financial support from the municipal sector, hospital foundations, and health service providers. The funding expired in December, and MAOHT representatives are making the rounds trying to secure financial contributions for another three years.
According to a presentation to council, the initiative has been successful. “In fiscal year 2024-25: 15 new family physicians and nurse practitioners joined practices within MAOHT.”
The initiative is aimed at reducing waitlists for primary care providers, which are expected to worsen as practitioners retire and more people move to the area.
According to data from MAOHT, there are currently about 13,000 people on a wait list for a primary care provider in South Muskoka, 5,826 for North Muskoka [the Town of Huntsville has also been working on its own recruitment incentives], and 1,325 on a waitlist for Health Care Connect through the province. There may be some duplications with people signing up on various lists. MAOHT representatives said they aim to combine all the lists.
Councillors also heard from David Gravelle, HHR recruiter at MAOHT since 2024. He said building the ‘pipelines’ to attract care providers to the community is important. He said he is hoping to be able to access funding coming available to help with various recruitment and engagement initiatives.
“My early focus with MAHC (Muskoka Algonquin Healthcare) and with MAOHT has been to basically stabilize our hospitals for this summer in terms of ER and hospitalist roles, and I’m pleased to say that our hospitalist programs at both sites are fully staffed through until November. We still have a few gaps in ER, as the rest of the province does, but we’re daily working on that so that we don’t have any shifts vacant [and] we’re not asking physicians to work doubles and things like that.”
Gravelle also said that through the pooling of resources, recruiters are able to not only attend national but also international events to recruit practitioners to the area, as well as repatriate Canadian physicians and medical students back to Canada who are working or considering working abroad.
Lake of Bays Mayor Terry Glover, who is chair of the District of Muskoka’s health committee said the shortage was “terrifying at first. So, it’s looking much better.”
The presentation by MAOHT contains a list of all who donated towards the initiative this year. Glover said he is surprised not to see Muskoka Lakes and the townships of Georgian Bay on the list and while it is a provincial responsibility he said it’s an issue that affects “all of us.”
You can find the presentation to council HERE (PDF).
Don’t miss out on Doppler!
Sign up here to receive our email digest with links to our most recent stories.
Local news in your inbox so you don’t miss anything!
Click here to support local news
0 Comments