QUEEN’S PARK—As the month-end deadline loomed on pandemic-era provincial government program that assists rural and Northern hospitals avoid temporary emergency room closures, a temporary six month extension has been announced.
The Temporary Locum Program (TLP) has been renewed a number of times, usually at the eleventh hour, and was to expire at the end of March. Hospitals have been informed that they will continue to be eligible for the funding until September 30.
Island Doctor Maurianne Reade discussed the program with The Expositor following the announcement of the extension. She noted that the program, which provides a top up payment to physicians is available to all physicians covering shifts in the ER.
Dr. Reade expressed concern that the program remains a temporary solution to a problem that has its genesis in the late 1980s and early 1990s, when the government began to limit the number of training spaces available to would-be doctors. In the intervening years, the number of physicians entering the field has not kept up with the demand or the retirement levels of doctors who are aging out.
“Governments have been too slow to recognize the issue,” she said.
Prior to the extension of the TLP in September, 2023, the ER in Mindemoya was slated to be closed for 10 days in October 2023 to provide the heavily overworked doctors with relief. Other communities across the North Shore were also in peril of having to close their ERs.
Dr. Reade said that a more permanent solution to the doctor shortages must be found, particularly in Northern and isolated communities, but that any such solution would likely take several years to come to fruition.
Manitoulin is also facing a critical mass of retirements among its existing stock of doctors, with many patients in danger of finding themselves without a family doctor.
“We have a short-term solution, but we need medium and long-term solutions,” she said.
