Doctors and health care have a big impact on a community.
Residents having convenient access to family doctors, hospital services, specialists and other treatments is only one side of the story. Potential newcomers also look for those things - and sometimes go elsewhere to find them.
Seniors and young families especially will base their relocation needs on availability of doctors, services, and health care.
People with chronic medical conditions don't want to move to a new community only to get put on a thousand-person waiting list for a family doctor. A young family doesn't want to consider driving half an hour to another town for a hospital visit in the middle of the night.
This is why the work being done by the local community stakeholder group for health professional recruitment is so vital - and deserves not just praise but as much support as we can give it.
The group has had several successes, this year alone attracting a husband-wife family doctor team and an internal medicine specialist.
The group has set up a great program where medical students visit Centre Wellington, tour the area, get a firsthand look at Groves Memorial Hospital, and talk to local doctors about what it's like to work here. Local doctors also get involved by hosting medical students in their practices, sometimes hosting the doctors-to-be in their homes as well.
Centre Wellington has directly benefited by the program - several doctors now practicing here were recruited through it.
Recruiting family doctors has become a competitive industry. Communities offer all kinds of incentives to attract doctors to their areas, stressing quality of life, recreation in the area, the quality of schools, nearness to attractions, and job availability for spouses.
Moving to a "rural" practice can be difficult. Doctors have to take on other duties in the local hospital, have coroner duties, provide long-term care, do their own surgery, take shifts in the emergency department, and more - which detracts from their in-office time with patients.
As the stakeholder group spokesperson Dr. Nicole Petrov says, it's more lucrative to see patients full-time in the office. But on the other hand, a rural practice can provide someone with a lot of variety - if that's what they're interested in.
Finding recreation and a balanced lifestyle is important - which is why a rural area promotes its recreation activities and quiet, rural lifestyle as attractions.
Despite this area not being considered underserviced - at least according to recent Ministry of Health guidelines - there are more than 800 people on the official waiting list for a local family doctor.
Petrov believes there are probably many more who could be looking. Some are still seeing doctors in other areas, some haven't put themselves on the list or aren't actively looking for a doctor because they don't have health problems.
And that waiting list doesn't take into account health care professionals other than family doctors that the group is trying to recruit to ensure we have a wide range of medical services accessible locally.
Until the waiting list is gone and Centre Wellington has all the medical services it needs, the doctor recruitment group will continue to play a vital part in making sure we have good health care.
