GREENSTONE – The COVID-19 pandemic hit just as hard on our healthcare professionals as it has on the human body. Hospital physicians are overworked and tired to the point where the Geraldton hospital might have to shut down its emergency room to sustain operations until more doctors can be recruited.
During the council meeting on Monday, physician recruiter Caroline Rocheleau inform the council that recruitment is down.
One factor of low recruitment, Rocheleau states, is due to COVID-19, where on-site recruitment tactics were put on hold and pivoted to virtual marketing and recruitment fairs.
“To be honest, we didn’t find it successful,” Rocheleau explained. “It wasn’t as personal. You have very little time with resident physicians, and more often than not technology was a big factor.”
The lack of high-speed internet in the region causes a multitude of problems. While technology continues to be integrated with everyday operations, smaller communities that are not equipped to meet the demand for virtual telecommunication have limited access to the potential recruits.
“The last two years have been quite difficult for recruiting physicians into our community,” said Rocheleau. “Unfortunately, this year, we are feeling the effects of it. This past winter, spring, and summer, we are struggling to cover our full-time physicians. Our physician forecast coverage isn’t healthy currently. We were just recently told that one of our physicians is resigning on Aug. 1. Therefore, we are urgent to cover those shifts.”
Rocheleau informs the council that they have tried reaching out to other municipal hospitals across the region to see if physicians might have an interest, only to find out that every hospital is suffering from the same staff shortage and fear their emergency rooms might also be on the verge of closing.
Geraldton's recruitment offices have tried to implement additional financial incentives, such as a 4 per cent pay increase, vacation pay, and maternity leave to lure locum doctors to the community with only one locum physician showing interest, but the locum doctor has yet to accept the position.
If Geraldton Hospital isn’t able to find any doctors willing to fill the position, Rocheleau admitted, “come July, we are, unfortunately, faced with coming to the reality with closing our emergency department.”
She then acknowledges the devastating fact that hospital staff are exhausted and completely burnt out, which affects patient care.
With the construction of the open-pit gold mine, Geraldton hospital is seeing an increase in emergency patients who are met by large wait times due to the lack of physicians.
If Geraldton’s emergency room has to close, patients will find themselves travelling to Nipigon Hospital or further to receive emergent care.
Rocheleau highlights some recruitment strategies like recruiting a second nurse practitioner, attending In-person Physician Career Fairs and creating a Physician and Retention Committee.
However, she also urges the council to understand that “locuming has become quite a trend. A lot of physicians don’t want to stay in one community permanently. They want to travel.”
So far, Geraldton hospital has potentially recruited six locum doctors over the next two years. However, those physicians won’t stay in the community, leaving Geraldton Hospital without full-time patent care.