A number of Wallaceburg residents will find themselves without a family doctor in the new year.
Laurie Nash, Director of Medical Recruitment with the Chatham-Kent Family Health Team says Dr. Muhammad Afzal is leaving his family practice at the end of January to shift gears somewhat.
“He is leaving family practice to actually pursue the sub-specialty known as pain management,” Nash explains. “Pain management is a specialty that requires additional training, which Dr. Afzal has undertaken. He will now be delivering care to people who suffer from chronic pain.”
While there are no Wallaceburg doctors accepting new patients right now, Nash says existing patients of Dr. Afzal can register to be assigned to a new doc through Health Care Connect.
“By registering with Health Care Connect, what that does is puts you on a list so that when physicians are recruited to communities and they are accepting patients, or perhaps existing patients decide to take on further patients, your name is on that list,” Nash says.
There are still four physicians at the Wallaceburg office of the Family Health Team, although Nash says none of them are accepting new patients at the moment.
Recruitment efforts continue for new family physicians for Wallaceburg specifically and all of Chatham-Kent as a whole.
Last year, municipal council dedicated $100,000 to family physician recruitment, the result being a task force dedicated to attracting new doctors to the area.
Nash says a number of initiatives have since been launched, including a new website.
“We are getting a lot of hits on that website, which means there’s a lot of traffic, there’s a lot of noticing generated in the medical world with our website, which is great news for the community,” Nash says.
A strong social media presence and more national advertising is also targetting family medicine and rural physicians.
Nash says Chatham-Kent’s affiliation with the Schulich School of Medicine and Dentistry in London is another key component, with a family residency training program through the Chatham-Kent Health Alliance.
Area residents in need of a family doctor can register with Health Care Connect by calling 1-800-445-1822 or register online.
