St. Stephen considers direct financial incentive to lure doctors
Council expected to vote on payments of up to $125,000 for five-year commitment
St. Stephen is the latest municipality in New Brunswick to take doctor recruitment into its own hands.
Town council is expected to vote March 26 on an incentive package that includes $125,000 for new family physicians and international medical graduates, $75,000 for specialists, emergency doctors and established family doctors who relocate from out of province, and $10,000 for nurse practitioners.
The larger amounts would be paid in $25,000 instalments in return for a five-year commitment of full-time service.
The proposed incentives come after several other municipalities have gone the route of funding scholarships for medical residents or subsidizing office costs.
"We have to do something," St. Stephen Mayor Allan MacEachern said.
Health care may not be a municipal responsibility, he said, but citizens are raising concerns about it daily.
"We've been struggling so long. … Now, we're at a critical stage."
The town is short about four doctors, MacEachern said.
According to the New Brunswick College of Physicians and Surgeons, St. Stephen has seven licensed family doctors: Donald Acheson, Jolanta Lalik, Norman Lister, Lesley Pinder, John Procee, Raluca Procee and Javed Raza.
However, Lister's phone number is disconnected and a staff member at another local doctor's office said he has stopped practising.
Another doctor, Suria Kumar Bugwandin, died suddenly last month at the age of 62, according to his obituary.
"The situation here is quite desperate," said an emailed reply from doctors Raluca and John Procee.
"We estimate that approximately 8,000 patients or more are currently without a family doctor."
Finding replacements for doctors who have been practising in the community for years is very challenging, MacEachern said.
"Our goal is to get them rooted, and hopefully they'll stay," he said.
The Procees said they've been practising in St. Stephen for two years and find it to be "a wonderful community."
Its attractions for them include proximity to the U.S. border and the seaside, friendly patients, "an amazing team" of other health-care workers, a growing number of specialists and a new CT scanner.
In the past, MacEachern has "wined and dined" doctors who ended up taking jobs elsewhere in the province.
"Whenever I try to negotiate, I have no tools in the toolbox," he said.
That's what he hopes this incentive package will provide.
The incentive proposal, which was put together by the town's chief administrative officer, was well-received when councillors got their first look at it last week, MacEachern said.
Health-care workers are "very excited about it, too," he said. He expects they will help spread the word to their contacts.
The Procees said recruitment incentives "could be highly beneficial," but they suggested "significant barriers in the medical licensure process" must also be addressed.
If approved, the municipality would spend up to $100,000 a year on the program, which the mayor described as a challenge to finance from the budget, but worthwhile.
"It's a major need," he said.
Another challenge the town faces in trying to attract doctors is not knowing what the health authorities are doing in the way of recruitment incentives, MacEachern said.
Horizon may be making competing offers to the same individual, he said.
"We have to work together on this to get to the end result."
In an emailed reply to CBC, Horizon said its talent acquisition team regularly engages and collaborates on recruitment with communities across the province, including St. Stephen, and it supports communities offering additional incentives.
The Holt government said it would open a collaborative care clinic in St. Stephen within the first 18 months of its mandate.
The mayor said that would be helpful, but he wasn't aware of any firm plans yet and thought the timeline would be difficult to meet.
The Union of the Municipalities of New Brunswick is hoping the provincial government will additionally make fiscal reforms that would allow municipalities to raise revenues for incentives such as these.
"Investing in health-care recruitment is another example of municipalities stepping into provincial areas of responsibility, despite insufficient resources," said Brittany Merrifield, the group's president.
St. Stephen may be the first municipality to propose a direct incentive to a physician, according to the union.
Fredericton, Saint John, Quispamsis and Oromocto are currently funding scholarships through the New Brunswick Medical Education Foundation for hometown medical students who agree to come back to practise for at least a year.
Many other municipalities, including Saint Andrews, Grand Manan and now Carleton North chip in direct or in-kind support for health-care facilities or providers.
The New Brunswick Medical Society said it's encouraged to see more communities getting involved in physician recruitment, given the shortage of family doctors across the country and the added challenges when recruiting for rural areas.
Financial incentives, a supportive environment and local amenities can be key factors in a doctor's decision where to practise, said president Dr. Lise Babin.
The dollar amounts being considered by St. Stephen are on par with what other jurisdictions elsewhere in Canada are offering, she said.
Babin suggested, however, that the provincial government must increase its own incentives to get doctors in rural areas.
The 2024-2025 program offers a $100,000 incentive for a four-year commitment.
With files from Information Morning Saint John
