Seven new doctors choose to practise on Manitoulin Island in underserved communities

Three communities on Manitoulin Island are welcoming new family doctors after a successful recruiting campaign, but the campaign isn't over yet.

Dawn Noble McCann is a staff recruiter with Manitoulin Health Centre.

She said seven doctors are, or will be, signing contracts.

Five of them are joining through the Practice Ready Ontario (PRO) program, an initiative launched two years ago by the province to streamline certification of internationally trained family doctors. That program requires doctors to spend the first three years of their practice in northern and rural communities.

Two of the doctors, Akintayo Akindele and Inyene Inyang, have just started at the Little Current site of Manitoulin Health Centre. A recent graduate of NOSM University, Chantal Boucher, will join them next month.

Two more PRO doctors, Hooman Zangneh and Mehrdad Khansari, will locate to Mindemoya in early fall, while another doctor from Saskatchewan, Shahram Yazdani, will arrive in August.

Dr. Irfan Shahwani will be joining the medical centre in Gore Bay.

McCann said recruiting continues to fill remaining vacancies.

The news comes as a relief to Manitoulin Health Centre's chief of professional staff, Dr. Maurianne Reade. She said the summer will be stressful until the new doctors arrive to shoulder some of the workload, but there is hope.

"One of the things that helps to keep putting one foot in front of another when people are seriously overworked is knowing that we do have some light at the end of the tunnel," she said. "We're really fortunate that we feel like these positions are going to be excellent fits for our group and for our community."

Reade said when the three new doctors arrive, there will be the equivalent of seven working full-time in Mindemoya, which is almost a full complement for the site. However, Reade said negotiations continue with the province for funding for more doctors, which she said are needed to provide adequate care.

The three new doctors in Little Current won't fill all the vacancies so recruiting continues.

The Ministry of Health said it continues to place PRO doctors, and has promised to bring 100 of them to rural areas across the province in 2025.

A spokesperson said there are also doctors from the program practising in Sudbury and Cochrane.

However, some remote communities will still not qualify for help from PRO doctors.

The CEO of the North Shore Health Network (NSHN), with sites in Blind River, Thessalon and Richard's Landing on Lake Huron, said there are limitations.

NSHN relies heavily on temporary and visiting doctors as it attempts to recruit, at times having to close emergency rooms for lack of coverage

Tim Vine said it's a good program, but PRO doctors require the support of a local physician during their first three years.

"The physician would require chart review, that sort of thing," he said. "So there is a level at which, once the PRO candidate is in their three-year return of service, a local physician does have to meet with them and review some of their cases."

Vine said if there are no local physicians, citing the ER in Thessalon, that's a barrier to recruiting an internationally trained doctor, and not a panacea for all communities.

The president and CEO of the north's medical school, NOSM University, Dr. Michael Green, said while the program is helpful, it does not take the pressure off the school to train more young doctors.

Green said there are 400 family physician vacancies across northern Ontario.

He said the school is in the middle of an expansion, increasing first year students from 64 up to 108 by 2028, although he admits it takes time to graduate trained doctors.

He said that within the next five years, those students will be entering the job market, with roughly half choosing to stay in northern Ontario.