Rural residents in Chatham-Kent without a family doctor will be getting some much-needed help.
The Ontario Government has announced nearly $1.4 million to connect up to 3,000 local rural residents to a family doctor or nurse practitioner.
Melissa Sharpe-Harrigan, Chatham-Kent Ontario Health Team's Executive Transformation Lead, told CK News Today the provincial funding will allow existing physicians and nurse practitioners to expand their roster quickly.
"These are doctors that are already here practicing in Chatham-Kent who are going to get some added support to allow them to increase their roster sizes and attach people more quickly. So, we expect that we could start to see some of these patients rostered as early as September or October," she said.
Sharpe-Harrigan explained that this provincial funding targets specific CK rural areas in need of a family doctor.
"Really targeting rural Chatham-Kent. People who live in postal codes starting in N0P specifically because that postal code area has a higher level of unattachment than the provincial average," she said.
Sharpe-Harrigan added that the province invested $213 million this time around to target rural areas, and there's more coming.
"There's going to be more funding coming and more calls for funding that's going to look at both expanding capacity and ways that we can support new practices getting up to speed faster," she noted.
One quarter of Chatham-Kent residents don't have a family doctor, and Sharpe-Harrigan said this funding will allow two full-time family doctors to be hired.
She mentioned the Ministry of Health has set a goal of having everyone attached to a family doctor by 2029.