Hospital CEO reinforces severity of physician crisis

Paul Heinrich was thrilled with the news of more funding for the North Bay Regional Health Centre. 

Vic Fedeli, Nipissing's MPP, made a $10.5 million funding announcement in early July at a press conference at the local hospital. 

Heinrich, president and CEO of the North Bay Regional Health Centre, appreciates the funding but is currently dealing with a bigger problem. That is a lack of physicians. 

"We do have a real crisis around physician availability, and that's well known and that's not new news," said Heinrich at a media conference.  

"We have a great deal of unattached patients. We don't have enough family doctors. Family doctors do a lot of work in our hospitals. In fact, they get a bad name, often for not being available. But we have them doing about 10 different jobs."

Heinrich admits the emergency doctor situation is far from ideal.  

"We need probably double the number of core emergency doctors that we have right now, and so we're ramping up our recruitment efforts. But in the meantime, we've done a number of things to secure stability in the short term, with the use of some local physicians," he said. 

See related: Hospital pleased with provincial dollars in light of funding designation

See also: Health Minister's office comments on doctor shortage story

Heinrich estimates the hospital could use at least eight new emergency doctors. 

He says they are trying to get around the shortage by using "locums," described as health professionals or substitute doctors who temporarily fulfill the duties of a colleague. 

Heinrich also believes the crunched health care system is causing people to ignore their health more, which he believes means people are arriving for care in a bad state of health. 

"I also think during COVID, there were times when we discouraged, like people from getting care, or people felt sort of guilty to access care," he said.  

"At times, I think all these things are causing delays in people seeking treatment, and that means that they're coming in, say, three months later, getting admitted to the hospital. They might have been admitted three months before that, if they'd shown up, but they're dealing with their issue for longer."