Recruiting new doctors a full-time job
NEWS/ HEALTH — The town of Creston might have the answer to doctor shortages in the Kamloops region.
Coun. Marg Spina
Coun. Marg Spina, who heads up the Southern Interior Local Government Association, said Thursday a workshop on recruiting doctors this week was highly successful, attracting delegates from all over the region.
Several communities in the region have lost their physicians and find themselves making do for extended periods until they’re replaced.
A presenter explained that Creston has financed a full-time person for 10 years to pursue the hiring of physicians.
The recruiter receives referrals for the Interior Health Authority and then follows up with potential applicants, gathering information on their interests and needs.
In one case, she said, an applicant encountered a visa problem at the U.S. border but it was resolved within 72 hours.
Spina said doctor recruitment must be an ongoing exercise because the process of getting new physicians for communities take time. “It takes more than a year sometimes to get a physician to your town, to your region,” she said.
“So it takes succession planning.”
While doctor recruitment is technically the responsibility of the health authority rather than civic government, “it affects everybody,” said Spina.
ArmchairMayor.ca 
Sometimes I think we focus too much on recruitment and not enough on retention. We need to focus on making Kamloops a place people really want to live, not a place that people want to leave. It is that “livability” that matters most!
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