The mayor of a Vancouver Island community hiring doctors as city employees says it is “very close” to signing two more physicians for its clinic even as other communities inquire about replicating its model.
Colwood Mayor Doug Kobayashi says the city’s clinic currently has one doctor on staff, another is due to arrive in September, and they are close to signing employment contracts with two more physicians.
Kobayashi says they have had a lot of applications, but they’re only trying to recruit from out-of-province to avoid poaching physicians with active practices in other B.C. communities.
He says the recent announcement from the B.C. Ministry of Health about recruiting health care professionals from the United States is a “game changer,” because the expense of bringing in an American doctor was thought to be too high.
Kobayashi says Colwood is planning to start advertising on social media in the United States, the United Kingdom and South Africa to recruit more doctors, and he believes the city will exceed its goal of bringing on eight doctors in two years.
He says several other municipalities have inquired about the Colwood Clinic’s city-owned model because of similar issues with retaining doctors, and though it’s experienced “growing pains,” the facility’s first staff doctor has “become part of the community.”
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“It’s just been phenomenal,” he said.
