Stemming from an information report by staff on primary care access points, Chatham-Kent Council has decided to explore providing funding for doctor recruitment across Chatham-Kent.
South Kent Councillor Anthony Ceccacci entered a motion for Chatham-Kent to support primary care access points and physician recruitment in the following ways:
– To provide $85,000 annual Base Budget funding to the Chatham-Kent Family Physician Recruitment & Retention Task Force to support physician recruitment across all Chatham-Kent, prioritizing team based primary care in the four existing primary care organizations, and that the Task Force provide an update to Council outlining their achievements at least once per council term, and that this funding request be referred to the 2025 Budget Update for general tax based funding.
– To establish a Primary Care Family Physician Incentive reserve, of $140,000 annually or $420,000 total for the remainder of the 2024-2027 Multi-Year Budget, funded initially by a transfer of $420,000 from the Strategic Reserve and base funding be considered by the next Council in the 2028-2031 Multi-Year Budget.
– That the Primary Care Family Physician Incentive reserve be made available to Primary Care organizations in Chatham-Kent (CKFHT, CKCHC, TVFHT, TDFHT) for the purpose of providing practice incentives to newly established primary care physicians in Chatham-Kent, for up to $25,000 per physician recruit where no additional community grants are available, and $15,000 per physician recruit where community grants are available, or, in exceptional circumstances, directly to new physicians who establish solo practices in Chatham-Kent outside of the four named primary care organizations above.
– That the Primary Care Family Physician Incentive reserve may also be made available to those same organizations to apply for up to $20,000 once every five years, as a matched grant to support capital funding or new builds/renovations that are for the express purpose of expanding clinical space to accommodate new physician offices in primary care across Chatham-Kent.
– That the CAO and General Manager of Development Services, or their delegates, be authorized to review and approve applications for grants from this reserve, and that the CAO and General Manager of Development Services be authorized to enter into appropriate agreements with each of the primary care organizations to facilitate the transfer of funds in the above circumstances, and for a process for partial pay-back of physician recruitment grants for services of less than five years given in alignment with the current practice of the physician task force, such agreements to be satisfactory to the Director, Legal Services.
– For the Municipality of Chatham-Kent, as both a partner to the Chatham-Kent Ontario Health Team, and community leader, continue to support the work of the Physician Recruitment and Retention Task Force across its departments where appropriate to do so, in particular through the departments of Community Attraction and Promotion, Economic Development (Small Business Centre), and Communication departments in effort to increase the number of Chatham-Kent residents able to access primary care in CK.
North Kent Councilor Jamie McGrail entered a successful motion to postpone the first point in Ceccacci’s motion to the upcoming budget deliberations and the remaining items to the December 9, 2024 Council meeting.
A number of deputations were provided in support of the report, including from representatives of the Chatham-Kent Health Alliance, Chatham-Kent Hospice, Chatham-Kent Family Health Teams, Chatham-Kent Community Health Centres and others.
Budget deliberations begin for Council on November 26, 2024.
