Meaford council has made the decision to not join in on a committee which seeks to bring on a physician recruiter.
Reached during a recent council meeting, the recruitment committee works on encouraging physicians to come to the area as well as retention initiatives.
A joint municipal physician recruitment and retention committee was formed by the Town of Blue Mountains to address the issue with Meaford being invited to join in and take part. The goal of which was creating an official physician recruiter position.
“We felt at the time we were invited to participate in this committee, that we really didn’t want to be looking at this strategy only,” says Meaford Mayor Bard Clumpus. “There are many other ways the municipality could be assisting in their physician recruitment and retention and from a broader sense, just by some of the things we have learned that would be helpful to the physicians coming into the area, things like housing, things like a welcoming community, things like promotions of what amenities are available in the community that would help young doctors.”
Clumpus says this topic which has been revived for many years, is the result of knowing, anecdotally, there are many orphaned patients in the community.
“We have had several unsuccessful years of trying to recruit new family physicians in our area,” says Clumpus. “It was a concern for me and for council from the perspective of the health and well-being of our residents and what could we as a municipality do to help this.”
Clumpus made clear that Meaford deciding it is not in a position to contribute to the hiring of a physician recruiter does not mean they are not contributing and doing what they can to attract physicians to the area.
She adds she is not aware of where the physician recruiter process is currently at, but the committee handling it may go ahead with the position eventhough Meaford would not participate.
The committee is set to next meet on July 15 for more updates on the physician recruiter process.
