Belleville City Council moved forward on a motion from Councillor Paul Carr regarding a recruitment drive for Health Care Connect Registration.
Councillor Carr’s motion formally requests that the Belleville General Hospital Foundation launch a recruitment drive to get residents without primary care to add their names to Health Care Connect, which would include community clinics.
The idea is based on a similar idea to the recruitment drive done by the Our TMH group.
Carr’s motion also recommends that the Manager of Physician Recruitment and Retention, Karen Poste, prepare and deploy a communication strategy to advertise on a regular basis the importance of unattached residents registering with Health Care Connect, in order to obtain a primary-care provider and the details on how to do so.
Councillor Carr spoke about a pitch he made to the interim Executive Director of the Belleville General Hospital Foundaiton about implementing the awareness program.
“I know their ED, their emergency department, gets overrun with a lot of people that if they had primary care, they wouldn’t be there in the first place,” Carr told council.
“I suggested perhaps setting up a kiosk in the ED, get a volunteer, and as people are waiting for hours to see somebody, ask that simple question, do you have primary care? And if not, while you’re waiting here, would you like to register on Health Care Connect?”
Mayor Neil Ellis said he didn’t have any problem with the motion, but did mention he spoke with Poste about the campaign, saying she noted that there was currently no advertising budget for that specific campaign.
“My concern is, Karen said, depending on length of advertising, a plan to roll out, if we’re doing radio on all forms of media, we’re looking at thousands and thousands of dollars.” Ellis said.
Carr said that there would obviously be some budget decisions to make, with the operating budget meeting set for Wednesday, but noted that there were other strategies to get the message out about Health Care Connect.
“I’m not suggesting that we go out and spend thousands of dollars, but we do have a very good communication staff here that do very robust communication through social media. I would start there at least, because right now, I have not seen any formal advertising, even through those free channels to tell people to sign up.” Councillor Carr said.
Council supported the motion.
