‘I am going to solve a problem’: Meet the mayor whose plan to attract family doctors is changing the head in Canada

When the Mayor of Colewood BC went to an appointment with his family doctor in 2022, he was for a rude surprise. The doctor was going away.

“I was absolutely shocked,” said Dug Kobayashi.

Kobayashi, who has been the city’s mayor near Victoria since 2022, could eventually wait for the BC government to attract doctors.

But he did not. Instead, he stepped with a solution of his own, which can create a blueprint for other communities across the country struggling to attract and maintain family doctors.

“Here’s the lines below – making it as simple as possible (for a doctor),” he said.

Kobayashi’s idea was straightforward. After talking to doctors in 2022, what was important to them, many said that low paperwork, more financial stability and a better work/life balance.

Kobayashi’s response: Make them municipal employees. It is different from the normal system where many family doctors in Canada are independent contractors and are responsible for all aspects of the business as well as looking at patients.

“As an employee, we want you to become a doctor of 100 percent time of a doctor. No other administration, we will take care of it. We will see your medical office assistants after hiring. We will give you a salary, a fixed salary. We will give you benefits, we will benefit, all benefits,” Cobaishi said.

“It is as if we take out our fire department and our RCMP contingent from here. This is the arm length.”

Colwood is not the only community in the entire Canada that is trying to attract and maintain family doctors. Many small towns try to woo them with a promise of cheap housing or affordable daycare.

As 2024 survey by Canadian Medical AssociationMore than one of the five Canadians is not a 6.5 million adults-a regular health care provider.

latest Statistics Canada Data Since 2023, it has been shown that about 83 percent of adults have a family physician-85 percent fall between 2017 and 2022. Cubakers performed the worst, with 75 percent of adults access to regular health care provider.

Small rural communities often have more problems in recruiting family doctors than their urban counterparts. According to 2020 report of Canadian Institute for Health Information, Rural Doctors Eight percent doctors in the country were madeBut 53 percent of experience burnouts, often work in many communities.

Kobayashi said he knew that he had to work fast. Colwood was rapidly expanding, with its mountains and the ideas of the ocean-front, as people were going into the region. Reaching the doctors of the family will be the cornerstone of that attraction.

He took his view to his local member of the Provincial Legislature, who was then taken to the BC Health Minister, Adrian Dicks. Dicks were conspired. But Kobayashi said that it was still not clear that it would work.

“We don’t even know if it is a reality from the point of view of a business case,” Kobayashi remembered thinking at that time. “I got to make sure that I am not breaking the Canada Health Act or BC Medical Act.”

And then it was the opposition that he faced with the provincial bureaucrats, who warned how difficult it would be to make family doctors to the municipal employees.

“I remember (hear): ‘There is no way in hell’ – I think it was the word that was used – that you are going to give pension and benefits to doctors. No way. It’s not going to happen,” he said.

Nevertheless, Koyabashi, which describes herself as a “pitbull”, strongly. Once he and the province determined that the clinic idea could be legal, he got a green light and the municipal council approved it. The Colewood Clinic was opened earlier this year.

how it works

When a doctor sees a patient, the city bills the province, collects payment and pays the doctor’s salary. The cost of the clinic in the city involves – rent, overhead and staffing. Pharmacy is leased to space from next door, keeping the cost low. The council was allocated as $ 500,000 to install the clinic, but Kobayashi says there would be no additional burden for taxpayers.

“We believe it is durable. It is one of the lessons we are now learning that with proper time-development, we have proved that this is a revenue cost-cost project.”

So far, a doctor is in place. Exercises are expected to begin in two and late November, with the target of being eight within five years.

Dr. Cassandra Still was the first doctor to visit her family from London, Onts, where she was mainly practicing sports medicine as part of a large multi -kattle team. He first observed in Colewood that no medical care is available.

“This is a bit like an emotional roller-coaster, as you feel for these people,” he said.

“I am seeing people who have not seen a doctor in 10 to 15 years and they are presenting me for their first appointment. And we are either potentially diagnosed with a new diagnosis of high blood pressure or high blood pressure, searching a new breast cancer.”

The promise of the Colwood scheme wooed him in the west.

“The idea or concept of the clinic was that the city would capture all employees, rent, coverage, things of those types. And I really meet only only to focus on the aspect of patient care. And for me it was actually something that conspired to me.”

Still is part of a growing group of doctors from the family, who do not like the burden of practice.

According to Canadian Medical Association, Less than a third Medical school graduates opted for expertise in Family Medicine in 2023. It is below two out of two in 2014, many doctors said that the patient’s care -the administrative burden of running an office is very high.

“We can see some trends,” Steven Lewis said, a health policy specialist at Simon Fraser University in Bernbai, BC, who has seen important issues for medical school graduates.

“Now there is no generation of physicians who want to be so difficult for your practice.”

The stiller has no objection to his own owner.

“I get a petcheck every two weeks, which is good because then you can do a bit of financial plan and stability in life.”

68 and 66 -year -old Sheela and Shayne Aldridge were among the first patients of the stiller. Originally from London, Onts, they came to Coalwood in 2022, close to the family. He was waiting for about three years to get a doctor.

“It was like winning the lottery,” said Shayne Aldridge.

Sheela Aldridge said, “I started crying. It was a very emotional experience for me to finally get relief to a doctor to take care of us.”

Will other communities follow the suit?

The Colwood Clinic is gaining interest from cities across the country.

Kamalups, BC, want to establish a municipality of their own own run clinic and will submit this decline to the council.

Other cities have an inter -cords, but are uncertain. Cost is an issue as well as a question of jurisdiction. Health care is a provincial responsibility and some cities told CBC News that they do not want to step into that lane.

An Ontario city that carefully studied the coalwood scheme was Orilia to the north of Toronto. It has a population of 34,000 people.

According to its mayor, Don McSca, 12,000 of them are without health care provider.

“I always like ideas that break the mold and take a different look at things,” Mcisak said.

However, the cost of re -starting a location in the city hall for the clinic will come close to $ 1.5 million. The council did not approve the expenditure, so the city will recruit a doctor instead.

Nevertheless, Mcisaac is leaving the door open to a collood-style clinic.

“I think they stripped it naked,” he said. “We have not left that idea and we are still looking for an option in terms of way of going there.”

Despite the increasing interest around the Coalwood Clinic Scheme, some doctors are uncertain.

The President of the college of the doctors of Canada’s family, Dr. Carrie Bernard says that this idea is an exciting, but it comes with questions.

“The risk is that if it is just doing itself itself, will it be absent from some ways to the provinces from their responsibilities and will it increase some inequalities that already exist between communities at all types of levels?”

Kobayashi says that this is not something that will hug every doctor. Some entrepreneurs will continue to run their practices.

But experts like Lewis agree that if the Coalwood Clinic Scheme inspires other cities to think outside the box, it can give rise to solutions that can save people’s lives.

“I think the lesson of the world’s coalwood is that if you make it, they will come.”