There are two new family doctors moving to Chatham-Kent.
The Chatham-Kent Family Health Team (CKFHT) is currently short five family doctors and is expected to make the hiring announcement soon.
Laurie Nash, CKFHT's director of medical recruitment, told Blackburn News Chatham on Monday the new doctors should be ready to either take new patients or replace retiring doctors and take over their patients this fall. Nash said attracting doctors to a small, rural community is very challenging.
"Part of the thing that I enjoy the most is helping people understand that we actually have state of the art clinics available here," Nash said, adding that family doctors are still a vital part of the health system and work very closely with specialists. "They are essentially the first port of call in terms of health care and they are the ones then that make the referral to the specialists."
Nash said former family health team patients who have lost their doctors will get the first crack at the new doctors.
"As much as we would like to open our doors to everyone in Chatham-Kent, we simply don't have the capacity for that right now but as we continue to recruit obviously people will be invited to come and fill in those applications," said Nash.
Nash added other patients in need will eventually get their chance to apply for a doctor. She said a family doctor usually takes care of roughly 1,200 patients.
The Chatham-Kent area has had a shortage of family doctors for years and is considered by the Ministry of Health as an under-serviced community.
Nash said the Chatham-Kent Family Health Team uses various practices to attract doctors to the area, such as job fairs held by medical schools, word of mouth, print advertising, and reaching local medical students to determine if they want to return to set up their practice in Chatham-Kent.
