Many people living in Lake Cowichan – including the family of Mayor Tim McGonigle—will be on the hunt for a new general practitioner, after news broke that one of the community’s doctors is moving away, and another is retiring.
McGonigle said that once these physicians are no longer practicing in the West Cowichan, the community of roughly 6,500 people will rely on 1.7 nurse practitioners.
“We do thank the nurse practitioners for what they’re doing, but it is not enough to accommodate the needs of our community,” McGonigle said.
The neighbouring municipality of Duncan will host the nearest clinic where locals can access general practitioners. For McGonigle, this distance is made significant by the number of seniors in his community who may find it harder to travel.
McGonigle acknowledged that Colwood has looked to the potential solution of hiring doctors directly, but said it will not work in a community with less revenue.
“With a small tax base like the town of lake Cowichan, 87 per cent is residential taxation, that’s not a model that can work for us,” he said, noting that episodic, urgent and primary care services are needed in his area.
He noted that the rural and recreational nature of Lake Cowichan could be a draw for recruiting physicians, and said his community had to work to recruit doctors previously more than a decade ago. McGonigle does not want to reinvent the wheel, but he is also planning to pay attention to new strategies for physician recruitment people are trying across the province.
Unless the community can figure something out before June, there will be at least some length of time with no family physicians in the area.
“Our physician who is retiring is probably one of the last doctors who did house calls and he is going to be sorely missed,” McGonigle.
McGonigle discussed the situation with Al Ferraby this morning: