Mayor and hospital board CEO in small northern Ontario spar over cause of doctor shortage

People without family doctors in the Matheson, Iroquois Falls and Cochrane area are lighting up social media as the mayor of Cochrane and the CEO of the area's hospital board skirmish over why there's a shortage in the area.

Cochrane Mayor Peter Politis says thanks to the town's recruiting efforts, family doctors want to locate to an area where many people lack primary care, but he says the MIC's Group of Health Services, which runs the three local hospitals, is letting them down. 

"Cochrane has actually become a sought-after destination for physicians, with five additional doctors signing employment offers with the town—offers that MICs refused to also sign," he wrote on social media.

"The town is committing hundreds of thousands of dollars per doctor, an unprecedented move for a municipality. Unfortunately, MICs—and specifically Lady Minto Hospital—remain the sole barrier preventing these doctors from practicing here."

The barrier, claims Politis, is that the board refuses to allocate a certain number of emergency room shifts to prospective family doctors, who want those lucrative shifts to boost their income. 

"All we require are five emergency room shifts per doctor to attract four more doctors and have more doctors than we need, to have a doctor for everybody," Politis said in an interview.

"Every unrostered patient in this community would have a doctor, and they're not providing those shifts."

Politis claims it's an arrangement that other communities reach with their hospitals and he's blaming the MICs Group of Health Services for failing to collaborate and help the town of 5,400.

But the hospital board fired back in a release late last week saying the town is offering something it can't legally provide.

Paul Chatelain— the CEO of the board covering Matheson, Iroquois Falls and Cochrane which includes the Lady Minto Hospital in Cochrane— said when a new doctor arrives this fall, staffing at the emergency room will be at full capacity.

He considers that collaboration, and a stable emergency room, to be signs of success, demonstrating co-operation and ensuring the ER remains open when others in northeastern Ontario are frequently closed. 

"Our mandate is to make sure our ER department and our hospital patients are seen," he said.

"Unfortunately, you know, primary care….we work with primary care, but it's not our responsibility."

As for carving out emergency room shifts to seal the deal with prospective family doctors, Chatelain said that would go against employment law.

"If we were to remove these doctors or take some of their shifts away, there's legal ramifications around that they could sue us for," he said.

"It's kind of like an employment contract. We've already touched base with our legal. It's a real sticky situation. We can't just remove physicians' hours."

Chatelain said those doctors have long had contracts with the board and the hospital doesn't rely on locums, or visiting doctors, for emergency room coverage, as many other hospitals do.

He said if anything changes, such as a retirement of an existing doctor, to create a vacant position among ER staff, he would be freed up to help create an offer to bring in a family physician who also wanted ER shifts.

In the meantime, both Politis and Chatelain say collaboration is key as the people they serve in the region grow increasingly vocal about a lack of primary care.