The Chatham-Kent Health Alliance is working hard to bolster their doctor ranks, and it’s beginning to pay off. 
Medical recruiter Fannie Vavoulis says Chatham-Kent is competing in a tough market.
“Most people don’t understand how difficult it is to recruit physicians,” Vavoulis says. “From what we’re hearing and from other recruiters I’ve spoken to across the province, there’s physician shortages not just in Chatham-Kent but all over.”
Stats show it can anywhere from six months to two years and about $85,000 to recruit a single doctor.
While progress is being made, including the addition of two new physicians in the last week, Vavoulis says there’s still lots of work to be done to get the CKHA staffing levels to where they need to be.
“It wasn’t that we were short-sighted in the past, it was just when a physician leaves a department, it can create quite a hole in the department and staffing issues,” she says. “We are all hands on deck to fill the gaps that we have and then focus on retaining physicians.”
She says the hospital is working with the family health teams and the municipality to try to attract more family doctors as well.
