SIOUX LOOKOUT — The shortage of doctors across the country, which have caused the threat of temporary emergency department closures and challenges accessing health care, is being acutely felt in Sioux Lookout.
“We just don’t have enough physical people to fill shifts, so there is an enormous number of shifts that a vacant in a lot of rural communities,” said Mary England, a family doctor in Sioux Lookout.
England said the strain of not striking a healthy work and life balance is stressful until extra help arrives through the locum program, but alternatively, if emergency room services shut down and clinics are closed, the impact community has a distinct domino effect as patient ailments are left untreated.
“When patients are waiting for care their conditions will progress and get more acute illness and they will have to go to acute care. So, obviously, it’s a vicious cycle that goes around and around,” England said.
Jumping back and forth between the emergency department and her family practice put a strain on her roster of patients. As a family doctor, managing her rostered patients is difficult especially when her patient tells her how long they have been waiting for an appointment. According to England, for every patient she has rosters, five unrostered patients are waiting for an appointment.
However, England feels taking those emergency department shifts is essential.
“Those emerge shifts are a struggle to fill them. We all do those shifts. While doing that job, you feel like you are doing good work keeping the emerge open, but it’s really hard on the community level for the people for are waiting for general primary care,” England said.
England stated that the solution to this problem is better recruitment efforts need to be put in place for physicians who want to work in the north, as well as, longer-term locum positions to fill the rest of the gaps.
But she also recognizes why some people living in larger urban cities might see some drawbacks to relocating to the rural north.
“You can imagine that a community like Sioux Lookout doesn’t have the perks of a larger centre. There are housing issues, childcare issues, recreational opportunities are a little bit less, and schools may not be what people are used to in larger communities. We need to be able to provide some sort of appeal for doctors to want to come to work up here,” said England.
Late last year, Sioux Lookout council voted to create a physician recruitment committee, and to provide dollars to bring in four temporary doctors, which included funding for those locum doctors for three months, along with a travel allowance for each physician and fitness centre memberships.
England said it takes time for newcomers to feel part of a community.
“We are not going to successfully recruit people long term if we can’t allow them a quality of life that enables them to embed and get to know the community and that required a bit of time not working,” said England.
When it all comes down to it, England called on governments to invest in rural communities to help enhance community services.
“What we are finding is that it’s not just family doctors that are understaffed, but its physiotherapists, occupational therapists, mental health workers, home care, all of the services are building blocks to a healthcare system and every single one of these roles is lacking. Family doctors are the ones that see the effects because when people aren’t accessing those services there is no other place to go other than their doctor or to the emergency room,” said England.
