The 'dire' doctor shortage in rural northwestern Ontario: 5 proposed solutions
CBC
More than a week after a shortage of available physicians closed the emergency room in Red Lake, Ont., health professionals are weighing in on possible solutions to the northern Ontario doctor shortage.
Chiefs of staff in northwestern Ontario have sent a briefing note to politicians and others with an interest in the issue, informing them of actions that could help.
Several physicians have also spoken with CBC about possible short- and long-term responses to the problem.
Two people were transported from Red Lake to Dryden by ambulance during the Red Lake closure.
The chair of the Northwest Chief of Staff Council said what happened there will likely happen in most small hospitals in the region in the next six months.
"It is very dire," Dr. Sara Van Der Loo said.
The government and the Ontario Medical Association (OMA) have already followed through on some solutions to the doctor shortage that physicians in the region had previously proposed — prior to the Red Lake closure. Those include:
Here are five more possible solutions to the problem that have been proposed by the chiefs of staff and the physicians who spoke with CBC.
One of the barriers to recruiting physicians to take on shifts in rural and remote emergency rooms is physicians' fear of finding themselves alone with a patient suffering from a condition they have no experience with, according to Dr. Sarah Newbery, the associate dean of physician workforce strategy at NOSM-U.
Northwestern Ontario could overcome this barrier by setting up a system of real-time virtual access to on-call specialists, she said.
British Columbia has such a system, which doctors can access from their smartphones, she added.
"They really are the envy of the country in terms of the way in which they support rural physicians in that province."
Setting up a similar system in Ontario would require the leadership of Ontario Health, the provincial agency that co-ordinates the province's health-care system, Newbery said.
Ontario Health told CBC in a statement it is "open to working with stakeholders to identify solutions to address emergency department closures in northern and rural areas."
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