Every community and hospital in Ontario faces the same problem, a shortage of nurses, doctors, psychiatrists and other medical professionals.
Now Quinte Health is making a concerted effort and recruiting for physician candidates from outside of Canada.
Quinte Health’s Chief of Staff Dr. Colin MacPherson says reaching out to internationally trained doctors has been a sucess so far, attracting two internal medicine specialists and one pediatrician. Two others are close to signing on.
However, supervising internationally trained physicians requires a commitment from doctors already working in the hospitals.
“It’s an understanding of the collective situation to put oneself forward to do the extra work required to support another physician so it’s really generous on the part of the doctors that are doing this and I’m very very proud of them.”
The foreign doctors must work under supervision for between one and two years.
Meanwhile another new method of staff recruitment was undertaken recently involving not only Quinte Health, but Docs By the Bay, County Docs, Hastings County and the City of Belleville.
The organizations got together and held an online career fair via ZOOM with over 60 doctors, many from the U.S. and Australia responding.
The effort has led to two inquiries by physicians and more are expected. Such collaborative recruitment efforts will continue but staff shortages remain throughout the system.
There is a bit of a silver lining though. Quinte Health has recently hired 46 new clinical staff members, for a net increase of 17.
Also, three internal medicine physicians, a pathologist, a GP anesthetist, a radiologist, and an emergency physician have been recruited.
