Mayor Cornwall explains details of the medical recruitment task force

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Cornwall Mayor Justin Towndale announced before a council meeting last week that he had launched a medical recruitment taskforce, then provided further details at the meeting itself.

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It is a progression of what Towndale referred to at the start of his four-year term in late 2022, and a medical recruitment review committee will review Cornwall’s current offers for the medical fellowship program and other medical recruitment programs and efforts .

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“This has evolved somewhat (from 2022) and I will play more of a direct role in it,” Towndale told the council. “The goal here is to update the program. . . program has been great over the last 20 years in recruiting doctors and specialists to our area. But it’s time to move on and review it and look at other options.”

Towndale told the board he attended a primary care town hall on the topic last fall, and issues such as doctors having difficulty with the administrative side of the practice — including OHIP billing — came up.

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“We can look at ways to help with that,” Towndale said. “Some municipalities have taken (new) approaches to this, whether it’s a turnkey solution or directly hiring administrative staff – and letting doctors practice medicine. We have to look at what the doctor’s needs are.”

Towndale noted that in SDG alone, there are about 17,000 people without a doctor — and he’s a member of that club.

“Really, the goal here (with the committee) is to update our program,” the mayor said. “We need to look at options like nurse-led clinics, they are becoming more common and very effective.”

Accounts. Denis Sabourin and Dean Hollingsworth are also on the committee, and the mayor said a one-year target has been set to implement any new approaches.

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“In the meantime (the current programs) are still in place,” Towndale said. “It does not stop. The same criteria will apply and other criteria will come in.”

Cornwall has a medical recruitment program and a medical scholarship program. The first helps doctors set up practice in the city, the second is for medical students studying at a Canadian medical school who agree to practice in Cornwall for a period of time after graduation.

Cornwall Council had a fairly robust discussion about the programs during Budget 2024 deliberations last winter. The council passed a motion on a 5-4 vote in the final hours of budget deliberations to restore funding for the program to $200,000, rather than the $100,000 the administration had in its budget proposal.

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At that time, Con. Carilyne Hebert said she wanted to restore $200,000 because “we’re in a crisis and (and) the medical recruiting fund needs to go back to its previous allocation. . . the fund has been an effective tool in attracting medical professionals.”

Hebert also referred to discussions about possibly changing the rules on how the money is allocated, saying he agreed the money should be used to attract medical staff and help alleviate other pressures on the health system.

CAO Mathieu Fleury at the time described the fund as a long-term legacy program, but said times have changed over the two decades that the way the money is allocated could benefit from some change .

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Hollingsworth, in his January commentary, foreshadowed what will happen now: a review.

“I’m not convinced that the medical recruitment program has worked as effectively as it could,” he said. “Maybe (2024 is) a year where we ask, where do we want to be with him moving forward?”

The medical recruiting reserve, at the time, had a balance of $846,000. General Manager of Planning, Development and Recreation Jamie Fawthrop told council in January that putting $100,000 in the 2024 budget would allow the city to hire an additional doctor. With $200,000 in, two could be recruited.

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