KINGSTON, Ont. — Progressive Conservative Leader John Tory is promising hard cash to lure Canadian-trained doctors working in the United States back to Ontario in a bid to address the province's acute shortage of doctors.
Mr. Tory made the announcement today in Kingston, where 20,000 residents do not have a family doctor.
“This is utterly unacceptable to me,” he said at a campaign stop in front of the Kingston General Hospital. “The very linchpin of reliable access to health care comes from access to a family doctor.”
Overall, one million adults in Ontario do not have a family doctor, a statistic that has not budged since the Liberals came to power four years ago, Mr. Tory said.
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The situation is felt most acutely in small towns and rural communities, where many individuals are forced to travel long distances to get access to health care services, he said.
The percentage of family doctors in the province accepting new patients has fallen to 10 per cent from 31 per cent in 2002, he said.
Mr. Tory acknowledged that he could not fix the problem overnight if he becomes premier; the ideal solution is to create more spaces in medical schools to train doctors but that takes times.
He proposed three shorter term solutions to help address the problem: encourage young doctors when they graduate from medical school to stay here by letting them defer paying back loans for medical school; get some of the estimated 9,000 Canadian-trained doctors working in the United States to return home; and provide more flexible retirement arrangements for older doctors to allow them to continue practising part time.
“I will personally travel to the United States for the specific purpose of recruiting doctors to come home to Canada and I will not come home empty-handed,” Mr. Tory vowed.
He also said he would offer these doctors financial incentives to come home.
“I think you have to be honest about this,” he said. “You've got to look at this as a package. I don't think its all about money…. I think there's a powerful magnet that comes from offering people an opportunity to come home.”
The Liberals have already put out the welcome mat to Ontario-trained doctors and physician assistants living in the United States to encourage them to return home.
George Smitherman, who served as health minister under the Liberal Government, created the HealthForceOntario recruitment centre last year.
In a recent report, the Ontario Medical Association said the shortage is made worse because the province loses about 30 per cent of its new medical graduates to other jurisdictions within two years of completing their training.
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