B.C. mayor gets calls from across Canada about 'crazy' plan to recruit doctors

A British Columbia community's "out-of-the-box" plan to ease its family doctor shortage by hiring physicians as city employees is sparking interest from across Canada, says Colwood Mayor Doug Kobayashi.

A British Columbia community's "out-of-the-box" plan to ease its family doctor shortage by hiring physicians as city employees is sparking interest from across Canada, says Colwood Mayor Doug Kobayashi.

The mayor said the community has hired its first family doctor for a city-operated medical clinic, and the Victoria-area city is looking to hire seven more under the first-in-Canada pilot project.

The family doctors will be paid as community employees, receiving full medical benefits, vacation and a pension, he said.

Some people called the plan "crazy," when it was first proposed last year, but now it's receiving interest from other communities across the country that are also suffering shortages of family medics, Kobayashi said in an interview Friday.

"I can tell you right now, the phone, texts, emails, it's just going off like crazy from all the other municipalities," said Kobayashi. "They call me curious about, what the heck we're doing."

The Colwood initiative is appealing to family doctors because those recruits become part of a supportive team with a focus on well-being, rather than the business of running a clinic, Kobayashi said.

While the doctors will be paid as Colwood employees, the program will be funded by provincial revenue billed by the clinic through the Ministry of Health in the same way doctors in other clinics bill for their time and office assistants.