By Cecilia Nasmith
The $17,100 Cobourg invests each year in the West Northumberland Physician Recruitment Committee is money well spent, Mayor John Henderson declared at Monday's committee-of-the-whole council meeting.
Henderson's plaudits came after a presentation by recruitment co-ordinator Maria Gomez, who described some of the group's challenges and achievements.
The committee gets 100% of its funding from the five municipalities it serves, Gomez said – Cramahe, Hamilton and Alnwick-Haldimand Townships as well as the Municipality of Port Hope and the Town of Cobourg.
Their purpose is to retain physicians, recruit new ones and create succession plans for retiring physicians – though it's not a simple matter of replacing retiring physicians one-for-one, she added. Two recently recruited physicians will assume the 3,200-patient roster of a retiring physician because new physicians these days prefer a practice of no more than 1,200 patients.
On the other hand, she pointed out, “both have family members in the Port Hope area, so we can be sure they will be with us for a significant period of time.”
Key accomplishments for 2019 include eight community tours for prospective physicians (and one in 2020, she said), as well as providing opportunities for medical students and residents – and 80% of medical students practice where they train. They have also updated their social-media and marketing platforms.
Locally, they expect eight doctors to retire in 2020-2021, which is four times the rate they are used to coping with – and five of those doctors have practices of more than 2,400 patients. Meanwhile, more than 30% of local family doctors are over the age of 60.
The amount they are asking of Cobourg is a bargain, she argued, working out to about $1 per person.
Actually, Henderson pointed out, it works out to less than $1 per person, since Cobourg's population is in the neighbourhood of 20,000.
As a former member of the physician-recruitment committee, he added, he can confirm it's money well spent for something the taxpayers desperately need.
And the results they get is remarkable, given that other communities engage in bonusing – offering such incentives as $100,000 cash bonuses and even (in one case) a new car.
“You are doing a great job – my accolades to the committee,” he said.
