A study done by the Gateway Centre last year showed a shortage of 223 healthcare workers in Huron County.
That will be the subject of the Gateway Centre for Excellence in Rural Health's next virtual information session in its lecture series next month.
The next session on December 3 is titled “Retention - Why it is key to Recruitment”, and will cover the issues of rural healthcare workforces and trying to find a strategy to ensure there's enough healthcare staff to keep clinics and hospitals thriving in rural areas.
Sage Milne, Research Assistant with the Gateway Centre, says they'll have a guest speaker, Dr. Sarah Newbery, Associate Dean of Physician Workforce Strategy at Northern Ontario School of Medicine.
"There's no real rural health strategy that exists in Canada on how to challenge these discrepancies and inequities between rural and urban spaces. So she'll be giving some examples on potential solutions that we can maybe use," Milne shared.
Milne says the issues were definitely exacerbated by the pandemic, and the shortages locally cover a number of different areas.
"Most of that shortage is with PSWs and with nurses that we found. But it's also a lot of the support staff. It takes a huge team of healthcare professionals to create a hospital and to create a healthy and caring community," added Milne.
The virtual session is free to attend and will be held December 3 from 12-1 p.m. via Zoom. Dr. Newbery will be joined by a number of guest panelists.
To attend this event and future presentations, register on the Gateway CERH website https://www.gatewayruralhealth.ca/lectureseries.