Two doctors practising in Grey Highlands are sounding the alarm bells that a local health-care crisis is coming if more physicians are not recruited to the community.
Dr. Erica Ferguson and Dr. Will Gott made a presentation to Grey Highlands council at its meeting on June 21. The two physicians warned that a local health-care crisis is approaching as older doctors in the community prepare to retire and growth from new development arrives.
Gott, a family physician and emergency room doctor at the Markdale Hospital, said they are seeing an increased trend of patients in the ER that either do not have a family doctor or who have moved to the local area and their doctor is in another community several hours away.
“We’re seeing a lot of patients who use our emergency room as an entry point,” said Gott. “Right now we’re stretched very thin. The train is coming down the tracks where the system is overwhelmed.”
Ferguson, a family and hospital physician, said the local health-care system is being strained right now and recruitment of new doctors to replace those who will retire in the future is the key.
“Right now, we’re way over capacity,” she said of the system. “We’re over capacity and we’re losing people. We see a crisis coming.”
Ferguson said 20 years ago there were seven local doctors working the emergency room rotation in Markdale. She said there are now four.
“We’re at the very minimum. We probably need to double to serve all the community members we have,” she said.
Ferguson said it is critical for the community to step up efforts to recruit new doctors to the local area.
Coun. Paul Allen said the municipality has begun the process to re-establish a doctor recruitment committee. Mayor Paul McQueen also suggested a full-scale Task Force might be needed on the issue.
“We need to get ahead of this,” said McQueen.
Allen also pointed out the irony that when considering a development application a municipality must consider available capacity for water and sewage services and with local schools, but health-care capacity was not included. Allen asked municipal staff if anything could be done on that front.
Manager of Planning Matt Rapke said there is nothing in the Planning Act or the provincial policy statement about health-care capacity.
“A municipality, under the framework, couldn’t say no to a development based on lack of health-care services,” said Rapke.
Members of council thanked Gott and Ferguson for their presentation and for choosing to practice medicine in Grey Highlands. McQueen pointed to the community’s success in getting a new hospital, preserving Grey Gables and keeping the elementary school in Markdale open and said Grey Highlands as a community is known for getting things done.
“This is something council needs to hear and we need to take it to the next level,” he said. “The community has shown it can stand up.”
