Middlesex-London health team says doctor recruitment program nixed by committee is needed

With tens of thousands of Londoners lacking a primary care doctor, a local team of health providers say their planned recruitment and retention program has been misunderstood and is desperately needed.

The Middlesex London Ontario Health Team (MLOHT) requested $80,000 annually for three years from the city of London to help fund a pilot-project to recruit and retain primary care physicians in the Middlesex-London area.

The request was denied at a community and protective services committee meeting Tuesday in a 2-4 vote, with those vocally against the program saying they do not want to entertain municipal dollars going toward healthcare-related issues.

Deputy mayor Shawn Lewis considered the proposal a “race to the bottom” that would create a “bidding war.”

“If we start poaching family physicians from other jurisdictions in the province… they are just going to put in more money and then we are going to have to put in more money,” said Lewis.

However, Melissa Linseman, the project lead of the primary care recruitment team, says the notion of “poaching” is untrue.

“We are not going to be poaching from other communities,” Linseman told Global News.

Dr. Gordon Schacter, a primary care clinical lead for MLOHT and team member working on the program, said recruitment will work through other avenues.

“The goal would be the recruitment of new graduates finishing family medicine training and the international medical graduates,” said Schacter. “Our strategy is not to be trying to recruit from physicians who are actively working in their family practice in other communities.”

Schacter also said no doctor recruited would receive financial incentives to come to the area. Instead, recruitment would focus on showing the opportunities available in London-Middlesex and help support the families of physicians, such as finding jobs for partners of physicians through the London Economic Development Corporation.

According to the MLOHT, an estimated 65,000 people in Middlesex-London are without a primary care physician. Further, most of the family physicians in the area are older, with 22 per cent of patients rostered to a primary care doctor over 60 years of age.

Jane Tillmann, a regional advisor with HealthForce Ontario based in London, told Global News there are unique issues that urban London and rural Middlesex face.

“In Middlesex County… there’s less infrastructure, so as these small towns increase in size, there is no clinic space for new positions to start,” said Tillmann, adding that rural doctors, when they retire, often have more extensive rosters of patient that need to be placed with other doctors.

In London, Tillmann said, there is not enough access to team-based care, which is often how young family doctors are trained. There is also a lack of physicians in the city’s east end.

The program is estimated to cost $200,000, with the City of London’s proposed share being 40 per cent. The remaining costs would be split between Middlesex County, the London Economic Development Corporation, the Schulich School of Medicine and Dentistry, London Health Science Centre, St. Joseph’s Health Care and the Middlesex Hospital Alliance.

“We are trying to engage lots of different partners in the work so that we get a broad perspective on what are the root challenges or root causes of the problem here and how do we collectively work together to solve them,” Amber Alpaugh-Bishop, MLOHT lead, told Global News.

Alpaugh-Bishop said the retention aspect of the program is being overlooked despite its overall importance to the program.

“We have fantastic primary care practitioners practicing here now, and we want to retain those people,” Alpaugh-Bishop said, adding that some strategies could include reducing administrative burden or expanding access to health transformation services.

Tillmann added that the city could benefit economically if the program functions.

“If we are trying to attract new businesses to London, they want their employees to have access to primary care,” Tillmann said.

Should full council deny the funding request, the health team said they would transition to a “Plan B” to get the program off the ground. Still, the team said primary care access is urgent enough that funding is needed as soon as possible.

“The province is not funding physician recruitment, so if the city does not do it or the Ontario Health Team doesn’t find funding partners to do it, no one will be doing it,” Tillmann said.

City council will discuss the items on last week’s community and protective services’ agenda during Tuesday’s meeting at 1 p.m. The committee vote saw Couns. Lewis, Corrine Rahman, Elizabeth Peloza and Susan Stevenson vote against the health team’s proposal. Couns. David Ferreira and Jerry Pribil vote in favour.