Despite missed target, Ontario cities pin hopes on program for foreign-trained doctors
Global News
More than two dozen internationally-trained family doctors are now treating patients in Ontario as part of an expedited licensing program that missed its initial target for 2024.
More than two dozen internationally-trained family doctors are now treating patients in Ontario as part of an expedited licensing program that missed its initial target for 2024.
Despite the slower-than-expected uptake in the beginning of the Practice Ready Ontario program, the province now says it’s aiming to bring 100 foreign-trained physicians to northern and rural areas by the end of the year.
The Ontario government says the initial target of licensing 50 internationally-trained doctors by the end of 2024 was not met but that has now been rolled into the new target of 100 primary care doctors.
Touchstone Institute, a non-profit organization that has partnered with the Ontario government and the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario, said the first cohort of 28 licensed physicians is now working under three-year contracts in high-need communities that include Sudbury, Goderich and Huntsville.
The organization said a total of 191 internationally-trained doctors initially applied for the program when it was launched in 2023 and 55 of them were eligible to start the licensing process. It said 27 doctors either left the program or failed to pass its requirements at different points.
Wendy Yen, a senior director of programs at Touchstone Institute, said the goal is to bring physicians “into the areas of greatest need” in the province.
“The 28 (doctors) we are reporting is for the first cohort, but we have cohort two and other cohorts that are actively moving through the program,” she said in an interview.
Before the program was launched, the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario and the Ontario College of Family Physicians had both called on the government to provide a faster path to licensing for internationally-trained doctors.
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