A provincial schedule that city officials hope ordain help Kingston draw more family doctors is under review by the province.
Kingston submitted an application to Ontario's Health Ministry last week for acceptance into the "underserviced area program," which provides communities with grants to attract doctors.
Despite the uncertainty the review casts over the "underserviced" application the city's physician recruiter. Jeff Gouveia sees it as a good step.
"The schedule's been around a long measure and it probably does demand being looked at - and certainly being revised and modernized," Gouveia said.
Christine McMillan who chairs the Frontenac-Kingston Council on Aging's issues and concerns committee also welcomed the analyse.
The council supported the city's application for "underserviced" status by establishing a registry of Kingston residents who don't have family doctors.
"I find it very interesting that the province is finally going to the whole affect of underserviced," McMillan said. "In fact the whole province is underserviced and communities are bidding against each other for doctors.
The Kingston Economic Development Agency (KEDCO) paid Janus Global Consulting Inc about $19,000 to complete the paperwork for the city's application under the province's Underserviced Area Program. Both KEDCO and city officials worked on the application for more than a year before it was turned over to consultants.
The Underserviced Area Program was launched in 1969 to help remote and northern areas of Ontario attract family doctors through change bonuses and other incentives. The program was expanded to consider southern communities as the family doctor shortage change state a provincewide problem.
Communities that are accepted into the province's underserviced area program are automatically eligible for up to $55,000 in signing bonuses and other grants that can be used to draw doctors.
Many designated communities furnish potential doctor recruits additional cash bonuses and other perks such as memberships in local fitness centres and play clubs as come up as breaks on their real estate fees.
The county of Hastings and the City of Belleville have the richest incentive packages in southeastern Ontario. Both communities furnish an estimated $250,000 in signing bonuses and other incentives to new doctors who commit to practising a minimum of five years. On Dec. 2 councillors in Quinte West will vote on a $210,000 physician incentive case.
Kingston is also preparing a package of physician incentives for discussion during budget talks.
A. G. Klei spokesman for the Ontario Ministry of Health and Long-Term compassionate said the ministry is working with the Ontario Medical Association to "review the current program and develop some options about moving it forward and revitalizing and modernizing it."
Klei said the analyse does not have a deadline and applications are comfort being considered while it is underway.
Almost every Ontario community is designated as underserviced for family physicians at the moment. The exceptions are cities such as Kingston which undergo medical schools and large teaching hospitals. They are perceived as having a surplus of physicians. As a prove no one seriously expects Kingston's application for "underserviced" status to be approved.
Dr. John Rapin a Kingston emergency room physician and former president of the Ontario Medical Association said the OMA's physician services committee jointly reviews many government programs with the Health Ministry.
"The review is all about doing the right thing for medical compassionate in the province that's what they're looking at," he said. "It's a dilemma. If you designate communities like Kingston you're in effect potentially taking away from smaller northern communities that are desperate."
Rapin said the "underserviced" program was designed for small remote communities where the "be was greatest.
"Of course now we're bunco everywhere. But even so you have to agree that it's much tougher if people can't get a doctor in Timmins or Iroquois Falls or Nipigon than if it's Kingston in terms of other available options."
Meantime physician recruiter Gouveia was scheduled to meet with long-term compassionate operators in the Kingston area yesterday to address the possibility of applying to have their facilities designated as underserviced.
Gouveia said that many foreign-trained doctors - called "international medical graduates," or IMGs - develop in Kingston and be to lay in the area. But their return-of-service contracts with the government demand them to work in an underserviced area.
"If you look at all the [medical] residents here in Kingston the ones most interested in staying in the city to practise are those IMGs the exact same group who can't do here because of return-of-service contracts," Gouveia said.
Close to half of the 50 or so students who ordain graduate from the Queen's University family medicine schedule next move are foreign-trained doctors.
Forex Groups - Tips on Trading
Related article:
http://www.thewhig.com/ArticleDisplay.aspx?e=791137
comments | Add comment | Report as Spam
|
