For Chester Basin resident Lee Harnish, the lack of doctors in the community is upsetting, to say the least.
“It really puts people in a bind. Most people I know don't have family doctors (because) they lost them, so it’s not a good situation,” he said.
Harnish is one of the patients affected by the loss of three family doctors this year at Our Health Centre (OHC).
In August, Dr. Farah Farzadfar left her practise at the OHC in August, leaving Harnish without a doctor.
Harnish occasionally needs to visit the centre due to problems he has with high blood pressure, but fearing long wait times at the centre due to the short supply of doctors, Harnish said he’ll go without healthcare for now.
“What are you gonna do? You got no choice, it's either (long wait times) or figure things out on your own,” he said.
By the end of this year, the OHC will have lost three of its four full-time family doctors.
Dr. Victoria Ripley left the OHC on Nov. 7. Like Dr. Farzadfar, their departures were due to the fact that neither of their partners could find work in the area.
A third doctor, Dr. Kolene Jensen, will relocate to her home community at the end of this year and will take patients with her to a practise in Tantallon.
“Obviously, we are disappointed when a doctor leaves Our Health Centre, but the reality is that doctors choose to leave for many personal reasons that have nothing to do with OHC or Chester Municipality,” said Lorraine Burch, OHC’s general manager in an email statement.
‘Atypical’ departures
The OHC was built in November 2016 thanks to community donations, and an upstairs walk-in clinic opened last year. Previously, those wanting to visit a walk-in clinic had to travel to Tantallon or Bridgewater, or had to go to urgent care.
Until more family doctors are hired by NSHA, which is responsible for recruiting doctors for the downstairs family practise, the centre will employ one full-time doctor, one part-time doctor, a family practice nurse and a nurse practitioner, as well as Dr. Jensen until the end of December.
In the meantime, the OHC Association will continue to operate the upstairs walk-in clinic, which is open 16 hours a week and employs two fee-for-service doctors.
Burch said NSHA organized seven doctors site visits to the OHC since July 2019, with doctors visiting from Nova Scotia, other provinces and from other countries. Burch did not state if any plans have been made for those doctors to practise at the OHC.
Burch said the OHC will continue to support the NSHA’s and Doctor Nova Scotia’s recruitment efforts, and that the centre is working with the municipality “on the development of a doctor recruitment and retention strategy.”
The OHC will advertise the need for doctors through social media, the OHC website and through professional forums.
Dr. Nina Lucas, the centre’s remaining full-time doctor, also issued an email statement to prospective recruits, praising the centre’s positive work environment and attributing the three other doctors’ concurrent departures as “atypical.”
“I had to wait a few years for a spot to open up at this clinic,” she stated.
While doctors from the walk-in clinic will try to help the downstairs office, the chair of OHC’s board of directors told a local media outlet this would be difficult due to the high volume of patients the walk-in clinic receives.
Since it opened in April 2018, the walk-in clinic had 6,694 patient visits, 2,932 of which were by people without a family doctor.
‘Top priority’
Hugh MacKay, Liberal MLA for Chester-St. Margaret’s, said in an email statement that he’s been working closely with a health care advisory group in the Chester area to strengthen doctor recruitment.
“Doctor recruitment is and has been a top priority of our government,” he said.
The Liberal party pledged $6 billion over the next four years to help with doctor access, as well as other healthcare incentives.
Julie Chaisson, president of the Progressive Conservative Party and candidate of record for Chester-St. Margaret’s, said her thoughts are with the patients and the centre.
“I don't blame the doctors, people leave for different reasons. They have their own lives happen, and in these instances, that is what happened.”
While Chaisson said the Liberals are working hard to fix the problem, more needs to be done.
“The challenge is when you look at any kind of recruitment, and I think this may be the issue here, is that you're (not only) recruiting an entire family, in some instances, but you're recruiting individuals with positions that have individual needs,” she said.
Chaisson added she’s hopeful the OHC will do an exit interview with the departing doctors.
‘More than money’
Dr. Gary Ernest, president of Doctors Nova Scotia, said not only is recruiting doctors to practise in Nova Scotia a challenge for small communities like Chester, but retaining doctors over the long term can also be difficult.
“It’s more than money. It's how comfortable doctors are in the community, and how much their various needs (are being met),” he said.
“How do the (doctors) feel once they're there? Do they feel that the community's embracing them? Do they feel like they're welcome, like they belong in the community? The more those boxes are ticked off, the more likely it is, then, that people will stay.”
Ernest said one way to attract doctors to rural communities is to have medical students shadow family doctors early on their studies, as this can help develop an interest in family medicine while students are still at an impressionable point in their careers.
Ernest added more family doctors are needed to teach students, as the bulk of instructors tend to be specialists.
“In terms of the way (students are) looking at it, (it has) maybe given them an idea that that family doctors aren't as important,” he said.
Ernest said another way to entice doctors is to showcase the community itself with the help of local community groups, which can assist doctors with their various living needs, such as NOW Lunenburg.
NOW is a grassroots community group aimed at increasing population growth in the Lunenburg area, and works in conjunction with NSHA to recruit and retain more doctors to the Lunenburg County area.
NOW’s population growth coordinator Tina Hennigar said there’s no official numbers as to how many doctors have been recruited with NOW’s help, but said the group has played a part in enticing doctors to practise in Lunenburg County.
While Hennigar hasn’t assisted with doctors settling in Chester, she sympathizes with the centre and has offered her services to the community.
“I think what we can learn from this is how when we get new people in those positions, what message are we sending to them, and are we ensuring that the community’s meeting their needs, because as we've seen, (doctors) can go anywhere.”
Last week, NOW received a $20,050 grant to assist with doctor recruiting and retention through the province’s new Healthy Communities Stream.
