DRYDEN – The six-month extension of a program to incentivize fill-in doctors for emergency rooms came as welcome news to hospitals in Northern Ontario.
“Locum physicians play a crucial part in maintaining services at hospitals – particularly in the North – ensuring that our communities have reliable access to emergency services,” said Doreen Armstrong-Ross, president and CEO of the Dryden Regional Health Centre, on Monday.
“The Temporary Locum Program has proven instrumental in avoiding emergency department closures across the region, helping to ensure our communities are viable and welcoming practice environments for both locum and local physicians,” she said.
“We thank the Ministry of Health and the Ford government for understanding the importance of effective emergency care in our communities.”
In health care, a locum is a doctor from outside the region who fills in temporarily to prevent a staff shortage and maintain service levels.
The Temporary Locum Program began during the COVID-19 pandemic as hospitals were, due to staffing difficulties brought on by the pandemic, struggling to keep their emergency departments open.
The program was set to end March 31, but the Ontario government announced Friday that it is extending the incentive program until Sept. 30.
The program’s extension is good news for hospitals in the North, said Dr. Sarah Newbery, a Marathon physician who is an associate dean of NOSM University.
“This locum incentive is a really important support for ensuring our emergency departments are well staffed and covered and open to all citizens,” she told CFNO-FM radio host Al Cresswell.
Many hospitals in the province’s North rely on locum doctors to fill in staffing gaps at ERs.
“We know that if we don’t get those incentives, then we’re closing (the emergency department), which we have fought so hard to keep open for the entire pandemic,” Ray Racette, CEO of Kenora’s Lake of the Woods District Hospital, told Dougall Media last week.
“We’ve never closed,” he said. “And it’s such an important service for our region. And we also know the consequences of closure, which are not pretty.”
For the time being, the locum incentives are needed to keep Kenora’s ER ready to serve 24 hours a day, Racette said.
“We really need locums now until we can recruit (staff physicians),” he said.
“We didn’t have locums before the pandemic. We had enough staffing in place to cover (the emergency department) with our own staff. It’s only because of the losses we’ve had in the pandemic that we need locums.”
