For Lise Watton, a trip to a walk-in clinic or the emergency department with her two autistic sons is a nightmare.
Watton and her family have been without a family doctor since returning to Greater Sudbury in 2004, and have been without a pediatrician since January this year.
Because her children have autism, they interact differently to people, their environment, and stress. After a short time in a crowded walk-in clinic waiting room, they will begin screaming, pacing, and sometimes even throw things. And in most cases, trying to soothe five-year-old Daniel and eight-year-old Sylvain only causes the screaming to increase.
"Everyone there doesn't want you there. You're a nuisance, (it's) how they see you. Everybody's uncomfortable, everybody makes their own ideas of what the problem is. It's also very stressful for the kids."
"We try to avoid (going to a clinic) at all costs," Watton said.
But help is on on the way for families like the Wattons, as well as the tens of thousands of local residents still without a family doctor or specialist.
City councillors were told at city council on May 12 the city is on track for being fully serviced by family physicians by 2015, according to Ryan Humeniuk Greater Sudbury physician recruitment coordinator and Rob Skelly, Greater Sudbury manager of tourism, culture and marketing.
This is due to a city-led recruitment effort which will result in 12 new family physicians setting up practices this year alone, with more to come. The existence of Northern Ontario School of Medicine (NOSM) is also a major factor in recruitment efforts, as is the advanced facilities at the new Sudbury Regional Hospital, Humeniuk noted.
In fact, without the city funded recruitment program and the graduates from Northern Ontario School of Medicine, Greater Sudbury residents, like Watton, who need a family doctor, would be in dire straits.
“In 2007 we were faced with 30,000 city residents who did not have the services of a family doctor,” Humeniuk said. “Worse, 18 doctors were set to retire.”
If nothing had been done, up to 42 per cent of the city residents could have been without a family doctor, Humeniuk estimated. That would force families like the Wattons to continue to make do with crowded walk-in clinics.
Councillor Doug Craig, who co-chaired the mayor's round table on physician recruitment in the late 1990s, said the situation was bleak back then.
“Doctors were leaving this community in droves,” Craig said. “This was not an inviting place to practice medicine. We were
just starting to restructure our three-site hospital system and doctors were being bounced around from site to site.”
Now the situation has turned around, councillors were told by Humeniuk.
“From 2008 until now, the (physician recruitment) program has provided incentives to 15 specialists and has attracted 23 family medicine recruits. Twelve of the 23 recruits will open their practices in 2010, four in 2011, six in 2012, and one in 2013.”
Once all are practicing, this mean approximately 32,000 citizens who would not otherwise have a family physicians could be served, he noted in his report.
Showing local medical students and physicians from elsewhere what the city offers in terms of entertainment and lifestyle,
helping their spouses with employment, and providing modest incentives has been the reason for the program's success in attracting physicians to set up practices here, according to Humeniak.
At council, Humeniak requested an extra $200,000 from the city's tax stabilization reserve, a request that was unanimously approved by council. This one time extra-funding to the program would allow them to recruit the doctors necessary, it was explained, and should allow the program to work at a "maintenance level," replacing doctors who retire or move away from the city, after 2010.
For Watton, the news about the doctors — and the extra funding — is good.
"The more money the recuitment specialist has at his disposal the better," she said. "Our community health is at stake, and it will cost the government more than (the amount requested) per year for only a handful of families to utilize walk-in clinics and emergency care....most which could be avoided with better access to preventative health care."
Residents without a family physician should contact the Health care Connect Program, at 1-800-445-1822, for assistance.
With Files by Stacey Lavallie.
