Brockton officials say all but about 15 people who showed up to a Walkerton patient sign-up event with a new doctor made it onto a list.
A line of over 1,000 people snaked through the snowy parking lot of the Walkerton Legion Wednesday. Each person hoping to sign themselves or a loved one up to be a patient of Dr. Mitchell Currie.
The first 500 people were accepted as patients and the following 500 are on a waiting list.
Deputy Mayor Kym Hutcheon has been on the Brockton & South Bruce physician recruitment team for 20 years. She notes, Dr. Currie’s spouse is also a doctor and is awaiting final accreditation in the United States to work in Canada, and she intends to take on the 500 person waiting list.
While the number of people looking for a doctor in the area is probably more than the 15 who were left over Wednesday, Hutcheon notes, “We are fairly certain one of our incoming doctors will be taking more patients.”
Brockton Mayor Chris Peabody explains in an interview with Bayshore Broadcasting News, “We’ve got a great physician recruitment committee and they’ve recruited in the past, six young physicians to come here to Walkerton. So in terms of recruitment we’re in great shape.”
He says, the previous physicians who came on board took over the practices of retiring physicians.”
Two years ago we were in a pretty bad spot with a lot of our elderly group of GPs in Walkerton and this committee did a great job of recruiting young people. They knew the problem was coming, they didn’t wait for the retirement, they got very proactive. We got a joint committee with the Municipality of South Bruce and they’ve had great success.”
He adds, “But when a young physician takes over a list of clients from a retiring doctor, that leaves those who might have moved to Walkerton and who were never on the list, never had a doctor, they’re called orphan patients, that leaves them with no ability to get in ton the new doctor.”
Peabody, says, “So Dr Currie who is very altruistic– and he had this idea that he wanted to give the orphaned patients in the region a chance. So this was the idea that he came up with the ‘first-come-first-served,’ it was an excellent altruistic idea.”
He says, “Some people have asked me if he was trying to make a political statement and the answer is absolutely not.”
The mayor notes, “It was with the best of intentions to fill the first orphaned patients in the region and it was very successful.”
“So about 99 per cent of the people in that line went away with a very positive outcome thanks to Dr. Currie and our physician recruitment committee,” says Peabody.
Hutcheon, who was at the event signing people up says she’s still waiting on general information about where people were coming from, but of the 100 she personally registered, many were from Brockton or just on the outskirts. She notes there were people who lined up for their family members and seniors as well. She says the people she saw were, “Extremely grateful, and almost in tears when I said ‘Congratulations you have a doctor.’ ” She said she didn’t hear much complaint about lining up and notes, they were through the line by about noon.
She says the physician recruitment committee is working diligently to recruit more doctors to the area. Hutcheon says what’s been working well for them is focusing on doctors who are already from the area, or who are accustomed to living in a rural area.
Family doctors are in short supply in Grey Bruce, and Dr. Currie is one of three doctors to announce they had room for patients this month.
Two new doctors in South Bruce Peninsula recently announced they were taking patients which also saw a big response. Those doctors are part of the Practice Ready Ontario program which is for physicians trained outside of Canada. In that program, the newcomer physician is overseen by a team of doctors for a period of time. Then they go and work in a community with a year over close oversight by a local doctor to ensure Canadian standards are met.
