Town considers new approach for attracting physicians

By John Watson Local Journalism Initiative Reporter

The Town of Strathmore is considering changes to the way it offers incentives to physicians for bringing their services to the local community. 

Recognizing the challenges currently being experienced through provincial jurisdiction, the Town of Strathmore has been aiming to attempt to reduce impacts to local residents.

The town has made efforts to lobby the province for increased medical services and supports, as well as to establish new programs to attract primary care physicians to the local community.

“Over the past couple years, the town established two new grant programs to assist with physician attraction. They were the physician sponsorship grant policy, and the physician incentive program policy,” said Johnathan Strathdee, manager of legislative services.

The physician sponsorship grant policy, adopted in May 2024, was the result of discussions with the local medical office, engagement with external stakeholders, and review with the Alberta College of Physicians and Surgeons. 

The grant was developed to reimburse a local medical office which sponsored an internationally-trained physician through the program. Since the policy was put into place, only one application was submitted. The application was successful.

“It brought in one new doctor to our community, which was great, but for this reason, we are going to be proposing that this policy be amended to change a sponsorship grant total from three awards totalling $90,000 to one grant totalling $30,000,” said Strathdee. 

“When we talked to those medical offices, that was around how much the sponsorship grant fee or sponsorship fee was for those medical offices.”

Strathdee added there has been significantly more interest expressed in the physician incentive program policy, which has to date brought in two new medical offices into the local community, resulting in four more doctors.

Administration is recommending that the town’s resources be allocated to the latter policy as opposed to continuing to offer resources that are not being used for the international sponsorship program.

“I would agree with reducing the international sponsorship policy so that we can bring more to bear on this aspect. I have already had, and I believe our CAO has had conversations with an existing longtime doctor who has some plans regarding a clinic and possibly bringing in a physician,” said Mayor Pat Fule. “This would give us some more flexibility, some more ability to help out in situations like that on a case-by-case basis, as a council would decide.”

It was outlined during the March 11 committee of the whole meeting, that council may wish to create a medical services committee in order to better oversee the management and allocation of resources for the purposes of attracting medical staff and assets. 

Should council ultimately decide to establish a new medical services committee, through which a mandate, membership, and resources would be managed for attracting medical interests, a new bylaw will have to be passed at a future council meeting. 

This, however, would require a significant amount of the town’s resources by itself in order to commit to coordinating meetings, supporting procedures, and committee reports.