Lake of the Woods District Hospital is looking at different ways to attract more doctors to the community.
Ray Racette is president and CEO and says one of the key components they are trying to address is physician compensation.
“You’re really going to have to really sell the opportunity, and you’re going to have to be competitive on compensation and incentives and you’re going to have to work really hard on retention,” Racette said after a recent meeting of the Hospital Board.
“Everything that you do, your collegiality, how you welcome people, and how you make them part of the community. Those are all difference makers.”
Physician compensation was one of the topics brought up by city council at the most recent Association of Municipalities of Ontario Conference this past August in Ottawa.
Racette says increasing incentives is only part of the package that needs to be addressed.
“Everybody is short now. A lot of the impacts that we saw on nursing played out with physicians and others. So we’re all dealing with shortages. So now it’s competitive because now you have a small number of people that could go to many different places, because everyone is looking.”
Racette says some of the other issues they are trying to address are doctor recruitment and incentives for health care professionals to work here.