Every day, Dr. Shannon Reid gets calls from people who are looking for a family doctor.
Every day, she has to turn them down.
Reid has a roster of almost 1,200 patients and says there’s no room to add more. It’s causing her grief and stress.
“It’s a challenging time,” Reid said during an interview at the Angus Family Medical clinic on King Street, where she’s been practising for the past five years. “We get multiple calls everyday from people who are looking for a doctor for their grandmother, their mother, their kids.
"I’m just tired of saying no.”
The recent death of an Alliston-based doctor compounded the situation. The number of calls has risen exponentially as patients of the deceased doctor frantically search for a replacement.
There’s no way Reid could meet the demand, so she decided to take her concerns to the top of the municipal food chain — Essa Township council — in an effort to possibly secure another doctor in the area.
During a deputation at the township’s last council meeting, Reid urged the municipality to consider creating a fund that could be used as a signing bonus to attract a doctor to the region, a gambit that is playing out across the province.
Reid said she was all set to bring on a recently graduated doctor, but they opted to go elsewhere, lured away, in part, by a substantial signing bonus.
“When I talked to her, I told her I would talk to council and see if there was something like that available in Angus,” Reid said. “Before I had a chance, she signed with someone else.”
In Huntsville, a family physician who makes a five-year commitment to work in the town could receive an $80,000 signing bonus. A doctor who moves to Dryden, in northern Ontario, could get up to $37,500 for moving expenses and up to $155,000 in separate provincial grants for a four-year commitment.
“Whether it’s fair or not, the vast majority of municipalities do offer a signing bonus to some extent,” Reid said.
A reporter reached out to Essa Township officials to see if there was an interest on the municipality's part to wade into the signing-bonus program for doctors, but didn’t get a response prior to publication of this story.
Essa Township, along with Adjala-Tosorontio, Innisfil and New Tecumseth, currently supports the Alliston & Area Physician Recruitment program, working in co-operation with Stevenson Memorial Hospital.
A similar program is in place in Oro-Medonte, where the township provides a grant to the Orillia and Barrie recruitment committees for their recruitment efforts.
In Springwater, the township doesn’t offer a signing bonus, but it does provide a number of incentives for a family doctor to locate in the township, including rent-free office space with free utilities and no charge telephone, fax and internet services.
Ian Culbert, executive director of the Canadian Public Health Association, said there are pros and cons to municipalities offering signing bonuses to doctors.
The pros include finding talent quickly and attracting young, newly trained doctors who may have high student debt, he said.
The cons could include a strain on resources, especially for smaller municipalities with limited budgets. It could be a temporary solution (once the contracted term is up, the search could start again) and it could increase the potential for inequity among regions.
“Offering signing bonuses could exacerbate health-care inequalities,” Culbert said in an email. “Wealthier municipalities can afford substantial bonuses, housing allowances or other incentives, while poorer municipalities may struggle.
“This dynamic could reinforce a 'two-tier system' where wealthier areas consistently attract health-care providers, while less-affluent regions are left with limited access to care,” he added.
Culbert is also concerned that the signing-bonus strategy may lead to a “bidding war” that is unsustainable.
“Municipalities could find themselves in an escalating competition for talent, increasing bonuses to outbid one another, potentially diverting funds from other critical services,” he said. “For some municipalities, especially those in remote or rural areas, the needed amount could exceed realistic budget limits, causing them to fall farther behind in health-care provision.”
He would prefer to move away from the “slippery slope of financial incentives” to policy solutions such as provincial or national programs to support doctors in underserved areas.
Those programs could include loan forgiveness for service in high-need areas, subsidies for clinics and equipment in remote regions and mentorship programs, as well as increased opportunities for career advancement and skill development.
