Chatham-Kent Council unanimously voted Monday night to approve funding for recruiting family doctors to the area.
In a motion brought forth by Ward 2 Councillor Anthony Ceccacci and Ward 1 Councillor Melissa Harrigan, the Primary Care Family Physician Incentive Reserve would see $140,000 annually pulled from Chatham-Kent’s strategic reserves for the project.
“The main goal of this is to get us in the game as a municipality,” explained Ceccacci. “Many other communities around us are creating programs as such to invest in their community and attract physicians.”
There were some friendly amendments to the motion, including one by Ward 4 Councillor Jamie McGrail that requested the removal of a lesser amount of funds being given if community grants were also used.
“I just want to make sure that Dresden, Ridgetown, and Blenheim are also able to access the $25,000 per physician through their community healthcare network,” said McGrail.
Ward 6 councillor Brock McGregor pointed out that while incentives like these can be beneficial in appealing to family physicians, McGregor believes council should still try thinking outside the box, suggesting a student loan forgiveness plan as an option.
“I appreciate the need we recognize in our community. Unfortunately, we are in this situation with other communities in Ontario, and I think we have to compete against each other that is the reality,” said McGregor.
The $140,000 would be pulled annually over the next three years, with around four million currently in the strategic reserve. The plan would be to have the next elected council continue the funding if they so choose.
Harrigan explained the reasoning behind having the municipality provide the funding would allow data to be accumulated, but reiterated that it might not be the only place where the money could come from.
“We are trusting our partners in primary care and others in the community to take this and really take the three years and look at how we can grow it through creative programs and other incentives,” Harrigan explained. Continuing, “part of the longer term plan of the physician recruitment task force did include looking to private partners, business organizations, sponsor-a-doctor type of campaigns to go forward.”
The vote passed 18-0 with Harrigan joking that despite Northern Ontario offering more than triple what Chatham-Kent proposed, winters in CK are “much milder…for anyone who happened to be listening.”
