WHEREAS healthy communities are increasingly becoming a priority of local governments within British Columbia through the Province of BCs Healthy Families BC initiative; AND WHEREAS attracting and retaining doctors in the rural areas of British Columbia is becoming increasingly difficult: THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED that UBCM request the provincial government to ensure appropriate funding is in place to attract and retain doctors located within the rural areas of the province to ensure that the Province of BCs Healthy Families BC initiative results in positive outcomes for all local governments.
Ministry of Health The BC government expanded and distributed the University of BC UBC undergraduate and postgraduate medical programs to educate more doctors across the Province to better meet the health care needs of British Columbians. The goal of distributing medical education is to prepare future doctors for the challenges and benefits of medical practice in a variety of communities, including rural, remote, northern and underserved communities and to encourage the MD trainees to consider practicing in these communities upon completion of training. The Ministry of Health also has a return of service program whereby International Medical Graduate IMG physicians that match to specific positions in UBC Residency Programs are expected to fulfil a two family practitioners to three-year specialists Return of Service ROS in health authority-identified rural and semi-rural communities of need. The family practice IMGs with a ROS are distributed across the Province to ensure that each health authority receives some of these physicians. To date, Powell River has received three physicians through the ROS Program, two general practitioners and one specialist. Vancouver Coastal Health Authority has identified Powell River as a community in need for 2014. To align with the Medical Council of Canada MCC, IMG applicants can write the MCC Equivalency Exam in the final 20 months of their undergraduate medical education training; this allows IMGs to write the National Assessment Collaboration Objective Standardized Clinical Examination NAC OSCE in their final year of medical training. British Columbia is now offering the NAC OSCE twice yearly to 70 IMG, in the spring and 70 IMGs in the fall for a total of 140 IMG seats. The NAC OSCE can be written anywhere in Canada in their final year of undergraduate medical education. The BC Government is also developing a Provincial Health Human Resource Strategy to allow the Ministry of Health and key stakeholders including health authorities to better plan and manage the physician workforce within the context of an integrated, team-based and multi-professional approach to meeting patient and population health needs. The Provincial Health Human Resource Strategy will enable the Province to take a proactive approach towards education and training, recruitment and retention and the delivery of medical services. The Joint Standing Committee on Rural Issues JSC, with representatives from the British Columbia Medical Association, government and health authorities, have several programs in place to recruit and retain physicians to rural BC. These include the Recruitment Incentive Fund which offers up to 15,000 for physicians recruited to Powell River; the Recruitment Contingency Fund, which provides assistance to health authorities for recruitment expenses i.e., advertising, relocation, physician visits, etc.; the Rural Retention Program, which provides a fee premium for physicians providing service in Powell River of 10.5 percent and an annual flat fee of 9,180. The JSC continues to work on enhancing and expanding programs to support the delivery of physician services to rural BC. In May of 2012, the Ministry of Health announced funding of 22.2 million for the creation of 190 Nurse Practitioner NP positions that are currently being implemented with an expected full implementation target date of April 1, 2014. NPs work independently and as part of interdisciplinary health care teams in acute, primary care and residential care settings across BC. NPs have already been deployed to address specific health needs as identified by local Divisions of Family Practice, coordinating their practice with General Practitioners to better address the needs of complex and vulnerable patient populations. In addition, NPs are providing an increased level of care to First Nation communities and marginalized patient populations across BC.