Incentives attract visiting doctors to northern Ontario ERs but they’re not sticking around – CBC

Temporary Locum Program, renewed last fall, is set to expire at the end of March

Mar 19, 2024

The Temporary Locum Program has helped keep emergency rooms operating in northern Ontario including through the COVID-19 pandemic, but some say it may be working against recruiting efforts that would provide a lasting fix to the doctor shortage.

The province established the program early into the pandemic. It pays premiums to travelling doctors in northern Ontario with the goal of keeping hospital emergency rooms staffed amid a shortage of family physicians.

The program has been renewed several times, the last time in the fall, but it’s set to expire again, at the end of this month.

Doctors and administrators across northern Ontario say they still depend on locums to keep emergency rooms open but paying visiting doctors premiums works against them in recruiting full-time doctors to their communities.

Ann Fenlon is the medical recruitment and retention co-ordinator in north Algoma, which includes the Lady Dunn Health Centre in Wawa.

She said they have three physicians but the province says there should be seven.

Fenlon said that at first, she thought the temporary locum program would help recruit doctors, but it hasn’t turned out that way.

Incentives attract visiting doctors to northern Ontario ERs but they’re not sticking around – CBC

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