Mayor Josh Morgan made an unexpected appearance at the Community and Protective Services (CAPS) Committee during a discussion about local efforts to attract more family doctors.
The mayor told councillors that solving Ontario’s shortage of family doctors is the responsibility of the provincial government.
“I will never get behind throwing municipal property taxpayer dollars into incentive programs that should, frankly, be made illegal by the province of Ontario,” said Morgan.
Some municipalities in the Niagara Region and the City of Kingston offer financial incentives to attract doctors immigrating to the province.
“If Kingston wants to give $100,000, what’s stopping us from giving $120,000? And then what’s stopping Kitchener-Waterloo from giving $130,000 and then Windsor $150,000?” Morgan asked rhetorically. “ It is totally a race to the bottom with property tax dollars that were never meant to be spent on incentives for family doctors.”
Last year, city council provided $50,000 to support the Middlesex-London Ontario Health Team’s (MLOHT) Primary Care Recruitment and Retention Program to address the family physician shortage in London and Middlesex County.
The Program focusses on long-term strategies including recruitment, onboarding, and retention.
Six doctors were added to area clinics in the first year of the program (2024), with 15 more candidates likely to be placed in the next six months.
Approximately 25 per cent of people (over 100,000) in London-Middlesex do not have access to a family doctor, and 61 area doctors are anticipated to retire within the next five years.
On April 1, council will consider whether to provide $80,000 from a reserve account to continue its financial support of the doctor recruitment and retention program.
“This money is needed to continue participating in recruitment events and activities,” read a a report from MLOHT.
On Jan. 27, the Ontario government announced a $1.8-billion investment, including $1.4 billion in new funding and $400 million in previously approved funding, to connect two million more people with a family doctor or primary care team over four years.
