Leamington seeks information for doctor recruitment request

By Mark Ribble

LEAMINGTON — Leamington Council has sent a request from Erie Shores HealthCare and Erie Shores Health Foundation to administration for more information.

Erie Shores is looking for municipal dollars to help with their doctor recruitment initiative.

At its regular council meeting on May 11, council heard from Erie Shores HealthCare CEO Kristin Kennedy and Erie Shores Health Foundation Executive Director Christine Colautti, who both appeared before council in their second of three stops at local municipalities, looking for partners in the initiative.

They were looking for a commitment of $20,000 per year for 15 years to help offset costs involved with recruiting new physicians to the hospital.

Kennedy explained that the ER at Erie Shores HealthCare has ranked in the top 10 of hospitals in the province for the past two years — with regard to wait times — and they’ve had significant increases in ER visits and inpatient occupancy.

This prompted the fundraising initiative, which they estimate would require about $80,000 per year to facilitate.

The Erie Shores Health Foundation will also be holding their signature fundraisers in conjunction with the initiative.

“This support and partnership, which we would promote broadly and proudly to our community partners, staff, patients and the media, will serve as a vital catalyst intended to create further support from other municipalities, business leaders and individual donors,” said Colautti.

Council had a short discussion and deferred to CAO Peter Neufeld, who stated, “We are going to have to revisit our budget to see if we can find $20,000 for this.”

Council passed the 2021 budget in December, keeping a zero per cent tax increase based on several cuts to programming expected due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

It’s expected that administration will come back to council in the coming weeks with ideas on how to address the request.