Rural Health Care

Ministry of Health Recruiting and retaining physicians in smaller, rural communities is a challenge across Canada. The British Columbia Government funds a comprehensive range of programs developed and directed by rural physicians, health authority, Ministry and BC Medical Association BCMA staff through the Joint Standing Committee on Rural Issues JSC to assist rural communities recruit and retain physicians in their communities. The JSC has established a suite of programs designed to support rural physicians and enhance the attractiveness of practice in rural BC communities. These include: - Rural Retention Program RRP to incent physicians to practice and live in rural BC communities; - Isolation Allowance Fund IAF to recognize physicians who live in practice in small rural communities with no hospitals; - Recruitment Incentive Fund RIF to attract physicians to move to rural BC communities; - Recruitment Contingency Fund RCF to provide extra recruitment incentives for hard to recruit communitiessituations; - Northern and Isolation Travel Assistance Outreach Program NITAOP to provide itinerant physician services; - Rural GP Locum Program RGPLP to provide vacation and education leave relief for rural GPs; - Rural Specialist Locum Program RSLP to provide vacation and education leave relief for rural GPs; - Rural Continuing Medical Education RCME to provide financial support to rural physicians in the maintenance and development of their professional skills; - Rural Education Action Plan REAP targeted educational funding initiatives aimed at encouraging physicians to practice in rural BC communities; - Rural Co-ordinating Centre of BC RCCbc a forum for communication and professional development for rural BC physicians. The JSC also helps sponsor a specialized recruiting agency - Health Match BC - to assist rural BC communities recruit physicians. In July 2011 the JSC announced a new 10.7M program directed at supporting emergency room services in rural communities. Experience has also shown that community specific initiatives can also have a strong influence on a physicians or other health care service professionals decision on where they want to live and practice. Communities are encouraged to collaborate with their health authority and with Health Match BC in developing and maintaining initiatives that help make their community an attractive place for physicians and other health care professionals to live and practice. Government programs and initiatives, in combination with the hard work done by many stakeholders in the BC health care system, have yielded positive results. In 2009, the Society of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada reported BC as having one of the best supplies of rural physicians in the country. In BC there is one GP for 874 rural people - compared to the Canadian average of one GP for 1153 rural people. In 2004, we invested 12 million to build a Northern Medical Program in B.C., part of our successful efforts to more than double the number of medical education seats from 128 in 200304 to 288 today. The Government of B.C. provides 20.4 million in annual funding to the Northern Medical Program to train physicians in Prince George. We are just seeing the first cohort of graduates begin practicing in B.C. and 40 of those that have set up practice are currently practicing in Northern B.C. Through the UBC UNBC Northern Medical Program, as at June 2011, there were 13 graduates of the Class of 2008 who have completed their family practice residency program and have now embarked on their careers as practicing physicians. Of those, 5 almost 40 are currently practicing in northern BC communities.