Clarington supports physician recruitment

Clarington, Ontario – Clarington Council voted to support recruiting family physicians in the 2023 budget.

To keep up with the community’s population growth and the competition for family doctors across the province, Clarington is taking proactive steps to improve access to local primary health care.

A growing number of Clarington residents have no family physician. Sixty per cent of the 100,000 visits to urgent care clinics in Clarington are patients with no local family doctor, which is up significantly from approximately 43 per cent in 2018, according to a Clarington Board of Trade (CBOT) letter to Council proposing the 2023 physician recruitment program.

“Clarington is the fastest growing community in the Region of Durham. Our residents need to be able to access care from a local family doctor. This is an important investment in local health care and quality of life for our community,” said Mayor Adrian Foster.

In the 2023 budget, Clarington Council approved using $100,000 from the Economic Development Reserve Fund to support physician recruitment. Planning to attract more family doctors will be done through a working group of local physicians and the CBOT. Once the action plan is complete, the funds will flow through CBOT.

While planning is underway for a new 2023 physician recruitment program, it is inspired by a previous doctor recruitment strategy. From 2007 to 2017, an investment of $440,000 to recruit family physicians to Clarington helped attract 25 new family doctors, providing more than 30,000 Clarington residents access to primary care close to home, according to the CBOT letter.

In 2018, Clarington was designated a high-needs area in Ontario for doctors. This gave the community a competitive advantage that helped with recruitment but was not enough to keep up with the population growth. The designation will come to an end this year.

“It is time for the community to collaborate and create a plan to mitigate this growing shortage of primary health care providers. This is the first step to implementing a long-term program to bring more family doctors to our area,” said Sheila Hall, Executive Director of the Clarington Board of Trade.

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Media inquiries:
Municipality of Clarington
Jennifer O’Meara
Communications and Issues Management Specialist
905-260-2844 or jomeara@clarington.net