TASK FORCE AIMS TO ATTRACT NEW FAMILY DOCTORS TO AREA

POPULATION GROWING AS NUMBER OF AREA DOCTORS REDUCING

With a growing population, community stakeholders are coming together to ensure residents in Dufferin and Caledon can access the health care they need in their own community.

Launched by the Hills of Headwaters Collaborative Ontario Health Team (HOHC OHT), the physician recruitment and retention task force met for the first time Feb. 23, bringing together leaders in the community along with area politicians. The goal is to work on strategies to recruit new physicians to the area.

"(There) have been a number of retirements and departures over the past six months, leaving patients locally without access to a family physician," said Lianne Barbour, executive director of the Dufferin Area Family Health Team and co-chair of HOHC OHT.

"And so it was then felt that the OHT, we probably needed to really take a united approach so that in looking at the entire geography and how we could make sure that more patients in our OHT geography were covered with access to primary care."

According to data from the Hills of Headwaters Collaborative OHT, more than 4,000 people in the Dufferin and Caledon area do not have a family physician — this accounts for

about 5.3 per cent of the population.

As Barbour pointed out, that's one in 20 people in the area who do not have regular access to a primary care physician.

During the course of the last few months, Dufferin and Caledon has seen several physicians move their practices outside this

catchment area, retire or just cease to practice altogether.

According to the task force's estimates, 14 more primary care physicians are needed in Dufferin and 29 more in Caledon by 2031 in order meet the needs of the communities.

"One of the biggest challenges right now is that when physicians come out of school, they want to be able to go into an environment that is supported," said Barbour.

"So, there is less interest in a physician going and setting up their own shop with their own nurse, their own admin staff and working solo. There is really that want, to be able to bring their stethoscope and work in a clinic environment where they set up ... where they have support staff, they have colleagues and peers."

Rurality is another challenge in the area the task force is paying mind to, Barbour said. However, they recognize the importance of having care available to people who aren't able to make the trek into Orangeville or Bolton.

The initial task force meeting outlined priorities in recruitment and retention, and Barbour said they had 114 ideas generated — including working with government and community stakeholders to create an actionable plan to improve the way community members receive care.

Caledon mayor Annette Groves echoed the importance of local physicians and the need for this type of collaboration.

"The task force will look at our current providers and how we can support them, identify new opportunities, look at gaps, attracting new providers and how we can support them," she said.

While family physicians are the priority right now, the goal of the task force is to eventually expand its work to recruit other health-care providers and specialists to the area as well.