Sarnia-Lambton currently has 18 family physicians over the age of 60, 10 of whom are in their 70, and most want to retire in the next three years.
The numbers are staggering, and that's why Dr. John O'Mahony is working with the Physician Recruitment Taskforce of Sarnia-Lambton to achieve two goals within the next four years.
He said they want to establish a family medicine residency program and operate a self-sufficient recruitment program.
"Sarnia is the only community in southwestern Ontario, in the western catchment area, that doesn't have a residency program -- that's a training program where family doctors work in the community," said O'Mahony. "It's a two-year program. Windsor, for example, has ten spots that they train family doctors. I think last year 80 per cent of them stayed and worked in the Windsor area after. So, every successful, sustainable recruitment program is directly tied to a residency program."
Developing a residency program with Bluewater Health could take about four years, he said.
"We have to get enough community doctors teaching and get basically all the credentials from Western to be able to do this," said O'Mahony.
But, Dr. O'Mahony said he believes it's crucial, given the number of patients who will soon be left without a physician.
"We know new family doctors don't typically roster the same size practices," he said. "There's a big emphasis obviously on lifestyle and balance, so with a deficit of 15,000 patients who are currently unattached plus 20,000 [left unattached by a physician retiring] -- that's 35,000 patients who will need family doctors."
The Physician Recruitment Taskforce of Sarnia Lambton is requesting a four-year funding commitment, of one dollar per resident each year, from the City of Sarnia to establish the residency program.
"The reason we're asking for that four-year commitment is because we won't be able to build these programs if we don't know we are going to be financially stable," said physician recruiter Carly Cox. "In order to successfully match to a residency program, you have to have elective experience in the area that you apply. So, what we want to do, is reach out to our homegrown medical students and help them match to Western, in hopes of getting them to train at our Sarnia site. This will ultimately, hopefully, result in them staying here to practice."
The taskforce was granted $72,000 by the city in 2018.
Sarnia council will consider the four year committment request during 2019 budget deliberations on Tuesday, January 15.