Doctors at St. Martha’s Regional Hospital in Antigonish, N.S., have organized a local initiative to tackle physician recruitment and retention challenges.
The initiative also includes community members and stakeholders to help in the effort.
“We as a physician group have really been trying to work together and organize ourselves a bit better to kind of complement and work with the provincial recruitment strategy, but more on a local level,” said Dr. Jane Anne Howard, medical staff president at the hospital.
Highlighting positive stories
A couple of months ago, a committee made of over 20 physicians met and developed a strategic plan to understand and address barriers and ensure healthy physician resources for St. Martha’s and the communities they serve.
“I believe that provincewide, there’s concerns with physician workforce sustainability and physician health. And so part of working together as a physician group is to identify what we would think may be some of the challenges, but also to spin it positively,” said Howard.
READ MORE: Halifax residents rally against Nova Scotia’s health care ‘crisis’
Dr. Tania Sullivan, who is the current Emergency Services lead, says the initiative is looking to highlight positive success stories happening at the hospital.
“We are looking at developing a more substantial public relations, create a new website and we’re looking at developing a new recruitment video,” said Sullivan.
‘We do have a good quality of life’
She said many community members want to get involved in the creation of these projects.
“We live in a pretty small town, so we have really good communication,” said Howard, who says he’s feeling very excited about the project.
“I think we have lots of things to attract physicians and their families to our community.”
READ MORE: Amherst, N.S., doctor announces retirement from family practice due to health reasons
“We do have a good quality of life. I am privileged to be part of providing health care for such a wonderful tight knit small community, but also have the ability to live in a safe small time with lots of those city amenities as well,” Howard said.
As part of the initiative, the group, which includes Howard and Sullivan, will also be showcasing their hospital and community at the “Hope and Dreams” event at St. Martha’s in September 2019.
“We do have a lot of hopes and dreams for St. Martha’s and health care in Antigonish,” said Sullivan.
“We’re going to try and bring our community together in, literally, a holding of hands around our local hospital as we unite to that common goal of sustaining and creating a healthy and sustainable physician workforce,” she added.
Comments