ATHABASCA/BOYLE - The Athabasca region’s three municipal councils are putting their collective heads together to find ways to attract more doctors to the two healthcare centres in Athabasca and Boyle.
The bulk of the three councils from the Town of Athabasca, Athabasca County and Village of Boyle met with several local doctors and AHS representatives in charge of doctor recruitment via Zoom July 22 to address the ongoing shortage of physicians, that, while not necessarily dire at the Athabasca Healthcare Centre just yet, has been affecting the Boyle Healthcare Centre’s operations since the beginning of June.
There are currently 53 vacancies for physicians in communities throughout northern Alberta, said Athabasca mayor Colleen Powell following the meeting, and 47 of them are for family doctors.
“And they are having zero to no success in recruiting,” she said. “So, we wanted to meet with the doctors and the three councils to find the best approach.”
In Boyle, the departure of a long-time physician in June, left just one other doctor in town to cover clinic hours and to work at the hospital to cover emergencies, which led to multiple closures of the emergency department throughout June and July, mostly during nights, but also over the course of several days.
That situation has been temporarily resolved with the placement of a locum for the time being as the newly recruited doctor is entering a three-month training period to familiarize himself with Canadian healthcare. He is scheduled to start his practice in Boyle at the end of October.
“My impression of this was that everybody agrees that we have issues,” said Boyle mayor Colin Derko after the meeting. “After that, it gets really big, really fast.”
And while the level of urgency reached a fever-pitch in Boyle in the recent months, Derko said he’s glad to be working with the town and county to come to a solution.
“The great thing about it is, I don't need to convince Athabasca or the county of that urgency, and what we're going through in Boyle, they're 100 per cent on board with us. So, that is comforting,” he said. “I'm extremely happy that we're all sitting together, working toward the same goal.”
There are only so many locums, said Powell, and they only provide a temporary solution to the problem, so getting the councils and people in the communities involved is a good first step going forward.
“We haven't hit the wall yet, but we could. We've lost two doctors in the last year,” she said of the Athabasca situation, adding there are two other long-time local doctors well past retirement age that could decide to call it a career at any point.
Athabasca County reeve Larry Armfelt said after the meeting the plan is to start slow, and, with town Coun. Rob Balay as the “pivot man” build up the effort and gain some momentum by showcasing the region, and all it has to offer.
He also said there was a general agreement between the three councils to put the Tourism and Economic Development (TED) committee to work to put an extra effort into developing an initiative to market the region specifically to doctors, which was well-received.
“We plan on starting small first of all with the three municipalities and then expanding out to the community because the community has to get involved in this, so we're looking to expand out to get places like the schools and service clubs and Chamber of Commerce. We want to start slowly and expand into something that is excellent,” he said.
A big part of marketing the region is going to be showcasing the diversity of opportunities available to those to make the region home, said Powell. The great outdoors is always a huge selling point, as are the recreational opportunities that are available, but she also noted the arts and culture scene in the area is also very robust and worthy of its own spotlight, which may help in recruiting and retaining future physicians.
With files from Heather Stocking
