County Council gets update on physician recruitment

By Ron Giofu

REGIONAL — Essex County Council received an update on physician recruitment to the region, with council members hearing about progress gained but that more is needed.

Joan Mavrinac, the physician recruitment officer, told council members at the virtual meeting that it was her first appearance before county council since October 2019. She noted physician recruitment efforts have been hampered during the COVID-19 pandemic due to international borders being closed and out-of-province physicians wanting to stay closer to home.

“What it did is increase the number of communications I have been having with the recruits over the last 14-15 months,” she said. “It’s been an incredible year.”

In-person exams were cancelled and the Medical Council of Canada qualifying exam, the second part of a qualifying exam, is usually done in-person and that was part of the cancellations. That has impacted recruiting and it has required reworking with the licensing of physicians.

“It has been an extremely difficult year,” she said. “Doctors that would have otherwise had full licenses can’t secure them at the moment, but we do have them working.”

Mavrinac has been using virtual and telephone means to recruit as the physical office space in Windsor was closed in March.

“I work exclusively from home now,” she said, adding there are a host of clinics and hospitals as well as the county itself would offer space for meetings. “We’ll save that budget and I’ll work from my dining room.”

Mavrinac said over the last 20 years, they have had success recruiting with 55 new physicians welcomed.

“In terms of overall numbers, since the last time I was here, Canada has 241 physicians per 100,000 population. Ontario has 218 per 100,000 population and Windsor-Essex is at 175 physicians per 100,000 population,” said Mavrinac. “As you can see, there is still a significant gap with respect to the number of physicians in the community. We need to continue to recruit.”

The 175 number is down from October 2019 and that is the first time since the physician recruitment office has seen the number drop. She said the number of retirements among doctors is impacting the overall number of physicians. Many are over 65-years-old and over 100,000 people regionally could lose their family physician over the next five years.

Mavrinac said over 74,500 people in the area are not rostered to a family physician. An additional 70 physicians would be required to look after the patients who are not rostered.

“We have an aging physician population, we have significant unattached patient population and we have a growing population,” said Mavrinac. “We need to continue our work particularly as it relates to recruiting family physicians to the local community.”

The new mega-hospital will attract new physician recruits, she predicted. Now that she can tell people that it will definitely happen, it has made a positive impact to potential recruits.

Mavrinac stated her office began almost two decades ago and pointed out that things in the Windsor-Essex County region have improved. She said this region had 120 physicians per 100,000 people.

“This effort has improved our lot very significantly over the 18 years I’ve been doing this,” she stated. “I see that improvement still coming but we’re not beyond it yet. There’s still a lot of need out there.”

Leamington Mayor Hilda MacDonald asked if the County of Essex is the sole funder of the office or whether it is shared with Windsor. Mavrinac said Windsor ended its funding roughly a decade ago and hasn’t contributed since.

“They have a shortage of physicians too. I just don’t get it why they would stop funding like that,” added Essex Mayor Larry Snively.

Warden Gary McNamara pointed out the County of Essex has gone out on its own to fund other regional projects. Pertaining to physician recruitment, he praised the work of Mavrinac.

“You’ve been phenomenal,” he said. “We were in a crisis, a real crisis going back 15-16 years ago.”

McNamara said other regions of Ontario are “very aggressive” in recruitment by offering incentives and said investment in Mavrinac’s position has been a great one.

“I firmly believe with the advent of having our own medical school here and having a new (hospital) centre, there’s no doubt in my mind that’s going to be a huge draw to bring some of that young talent here,” said McNamara.