In a perfect world Westlock would have two or three more doctors, but overall it looks as though the community is in good shape.
Dr. Vicki Fourie, a doctor at the Associate Medical Clinic, said while he would like to see a few more physicians, the community’s needs are currently being met.
“We are still short two to three doctors in our clinic,” he said. “We had two doctors who left, that we haven’t been able to replace, and we have one doctor who’s leaving the second week in February.”
The clinic has a few leads on new docs to help bolster the ranks, but in the meantime everybody who needs to see a doctor can be accommodated.
He emphasized there is a difference, however, between getting in to see a doctor and being assigned to a family doctor. Currently, while doctors at the clinic are not taking on new patient assignments, the clinic as a whole will take on new patients.
And while many rural communities and the Alberta Health Services’ North Zone are facing more significant struggles in physician recruitment and retention, Westlock has enough going for it that the problem isn’t as severe. On the professional side, Westlock’s hospital is relatively new and offers a wide variety of specialty services — CT Scans, dialysis, orthopedic surgery and MRI services, among others.
“Traditionally Westlock has been doing really well,” Fourie said. “Westlock can offer a lot more than any of the other towns in the north zone.”
Dr. Firdaus Mydeen, who has a family practice at the Pembina Medical Clinic as well as being Westlock’s Community Medical Director, echoed the sentiment that Westlock has a lot going to attract doctors. He has been in town since July 2010, and continues to practice here due to the professional services Fourie mentioned but also because of the community as a whole.
“The community is a great community,” he said. “It fulfills both my personal and professional needs, and I would guess the doctors who have been here for 10 or 15 years would have the same feeling.”
He said the Pembina Clinic now has a full complement and will also take on new patients.
That does not mean, however, that there aren’t challenges with respect to recruiting and retaining physicians in town — although those challenges tend to be the bigger-picture challenges of a demographic shift and the work practices of younger doctors. As far as demographics go, the baby-boomer population is now reaching the age of 65, which will mean an increased demand for medical services. On top of that, he estimated about one fifth of doctors in Alberta are 65 years old or older and will soon look to retirement.
Furthermore, replacing an established doctor may require up to two new physicians, which reflects a shift in the lifestyle doctors expect.
“Back 20 or 30 years ago, they put in 12, 14 or 16 hour days and that’s normal for them. The trend now is more a lifestyle-suited work schedule,” Mydeen said, noting that is not a criticism but a reality that must be addressed.
Tom Vesely, the chair of the Westlock Economic Development Committee as well as its Doctor Recruitment and Retention subcommittee, said efforts the group has been making have been quite successful since it was created in 2010.
“When they approached us in 2010, we had a problem in town. There were some doctors retiring, there were some doctors moving and there were some doctors going on to become specialists,” he said. “We had a definite shortage of doctors, so we had to spend some money to shore up that area.”
The committee has been successful in attracting doctors to the community and keeping them here through a variety of approaches. First, the committee offers economic incentives to new doctors — help with rent or finding a home, help with buying or leasing a vehicle and activity passes for local recreation facilities.
The town and county help fund these incentives, which have contributed to bringing eight new doctors to town since 2010. Vesely said the committee paid out $43,609 in 2010, $10,980 in 2011 and just $3,716 in 2012.
More important than the money, however, is selling everything else the community has to offer.
“It’s not the money that gets a doctor here, it’s the community. That’s how we’ve tried to approach it,” he said. “If you can get them to feel like part of the community, they’ll stay.”
