A family physician will not call North Bay home via the first cohort to advance through the Practice Ready Ontario program. According to the North Bay Regional Health Centre, some 12,000 locals are presently without a primary care physician.
Health Minister Sylvia Jones confirmed the first 28 family doctors from the Practice Ready Ontario program — of a potential total of 100 family doctors by the program's end — will practice in the following 21 locations:
- Bracebridge
- Clinton
- Cochrane
- Goderich
- Gore Bay
- Gravenhurst
- Huntsville
- Kincardine
- Little Current
- Morrisburg
- Palmerston
- Pembroke
- Petawawa
- Petrolia
- Sauble Beach
- Sharbot Lake
- Sudbury
- Sundridge
- Trent Hills
- Wiarton
- Wingham
Through the program, foreign-trained doctors can become licensed more quickly and connect an additional 120,000 people to care, where and when they need it according to a Ministry of Health release issued Dec. 5. The Ontario government hopes to attract up to 100 internationally trained family physicians to practice medicine in rural or northern communities in 2025.
Addressing the family physician shortage
What does this mean for North Bay's chances to attract and retain more internationally-trained family physicians to practice in the area?
"We continue to work through the process with the hope that we have some new physicians come to Nipissing to support our community," says Wendy Smith, executive director of Nipissing Wellness Ontario Health Team. "I am supporting this work on behalf of the system partners of the Nipissing Wellness OHT. We are committed to working collaboratively to address the need to attract and retain more providers to the Nipissing district."
See related: Here's where the primary care crisis is hitting Ontario hardest
According to Ministry of Health spokesperson Hannah Jensen, through Practice Ready Ontario’s return of service requirement, applicants must practice in an area with a Rurality Index of Ontario (RIO) score of 40 or higher or within a Northern Urban Referral Centre: North Bay, Greater Sudbury, Sault Ste. Marie, Thunder Bay, and Timmins.
"The process for this program requires local providers to indicate interest in being clinical mentors and then there is a matching and interview process that helps to connect internationally trained providers with practicing physicians in a way that meets the needs of all involved," Smith clarifies.
See also: OMA calls for concerted effort to fix Northern doctor shortage
Jensen adds the locations of the remaining doctors will be announced once they have completed their assessments. "In other words, just because it isn’t included in the first cohort of communities, doesn’t mean North Bay won’t get a doctor."
In July, Paul Heinrich, president and CEO of the North Bay Regional Health Centre spoke about the strain the entire health care system experiences due to a lack of family physicians.
"We do have a real crisis around physician availability, and that's well known and that's not new news," he said. "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."
See: NOSM U: Family medicine crisis far worse in Northern Ontario
According to this recent Sudbury.com report, Dr. Sarah Giles, a rural generalist from Kenora, who is also an emergency physician and assistant professor of family medicine at NOSM University said the hospital and health system as we know it is falling apart.
"So when we say we are short of rural generalists, family physicians in Northern Ontario, what we mean is that health care as a whole is in jeopardy. Hospital care is in jeopardy," said Giles. "It's not just primary care that's the problem. It's the whole model. So if you can't go to the hospital to deliver your babies, if you can't go to the ER because it's closed, the same people who staff that are staffing primary care, which means the whole system is falling apart."
VIDEO: How to solve the doctor shortage plaguing northern Ontario
The Touchstone Institute says it is working with the Government of Ontario, the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario (CPSO) and others to administer a practice-ready assessment program for internationally trained family physicians in Ontario.
According to Touchstone, the province launched the Practice Ready Ontario program in 2023 to bring more internationally trained physicians into Ontario’s healthcare workforce faster by removing the requirement to complete unnecessary re-education programs. Starting in 2025, successful physicians with training in family medicine who have completed their field assessment will begin practicing as family doctors in northern and rural communities.
"Each internationally educated physician who participates in the program is required to complete a 12-week assessment to ensure they have the skills and competencies needed to practice in Ontario. This program also requires physicians to complete a three-year return of service as a family doctor in a rural or northern community.
"To ensure they are prepared for their return of service, the assessment includes training in all aspects of rural family medicine across a variety of practice settings. This includes an office, hospital, emergency department, and long-term care and home care settings."
