'We're not at this point supportive of getting into a competition on incentives because it is a competition we will lose'
One Ontario mayor is calling on the federal government to ban the practice of municipalities offering financial incentives to attract doctors to their jurisdictions.
“I think it should be banned across the country actually,” says Sault Ste. Marie Mayor Matthew Shoemaker in a report from The Canadian Press (CP).
He believes it should be outlawed “from coast to coast”.
That’s because municipalities like his stand little chance to attract physicians when other municipalities can offer bigger incentives, he claims.
Currently, Sault Ste. Marie needs 40 more doctors, including 18 to practise family medicine, Shoemaker says in the report.
While the municipality offers a moving allowance of up to $10,000, Shoemaker believes that is not nearly enough to compete with communities offering tens of thousands more.
“We think incentives are bad and we don’t agree with them, and so we’re not at this point supportive of getting into a competition on incentives because it is a competition we will lose,” he says in the report.
The growing role of incentives to attract doctors is putting a strain on some communities, one expert previously said. With local governments relying more and more on these incentives, communities that are seen as less desirable are being put in "an impossible situation,” said Ian Culbert, executive director of the Canadian Public Health Association, in a CBC report.
‘There aren’t any winners’ in push for physicians
Meanwhile, Todd Kasenberg, mayor of North Perth, is calling for a province-wide ban on incentives and has directed his appeal to Ontario Premier Doug Ford.
He calls the cash incentives a “mistake,” according to the CP report posted in CTV News.
In North Perth, 3,000 of the town’s 17,000 residents do not have a family doctor, Kasenberg says.
“So it’s a substantial issue and met with a lot of frustration in the community, a lot of anxiety.”
However, he says financial incentives are not the solution.
“We’ve entered an arms race and typically there aren’t any winners in an arms race,” he says.
Some provinces including—Alberta and Northwest Territories—have announced their own incentive programs to attract doctors.
Healthcare system problems
Despite the calls for a ban on incentives, the Ontario Medical Association (OMA) believes that the bigger issues are the systemic pressures on family medicine—such as underfunding and administrative burdens.
Zainab Abdurrahman, the OMA’s new president, said financial incentives alone will not address the physician shortage if the government cannot also retain medical professionals.
“We haven’t really ensured funding to keep up with the rising costs of inflation and the ability to really operate their practice,” she says in a separate CTV News report.
“And we have so much administrative burden with paperwork. If we actually address that system, then we’re going to have more people going into this, and then all these communities can have access.”
Healthcare workers’ primary reasons for quitting are poor wages and unsafe working conditions (70%), according to a previous SEIU Healthcare study.
Earlier this year, Canadian healthcare recruitment agencies reported a notable rise in interest from U.S. physicians, particularly women, to come to Canada to practice medicine. And some provinces are “rolling out the welcome mat” for these healthcare professionals.
Quebec, meanwhile, says it will not introduce special measures to attract American doctors, even as other provinces ramp up efforts to lure medical talent from south of the border. Previously, the province introduced a legislation that would require newly trained doctors to commit five years of practice to the province’s public health system or face steep penalties.
Canada, overall, anticipates a shortage of 78,000 doctors by 2031.
