Another municipality in northeastern Ontario is calling on the province to increase the number of students admitted to the Northern Ontario School of Medicine (NOSM) in an attempt to address the doctor shortage.
The City of North Bay passed such a motion. Initially, the motion was passed at the Federation of Northern Ontario Municipalities (FONOM). Since then, individual municipalities have been passing the motion.
Bill Vrebosh, a city councillor in North Bay, said turning to NOSM to help address the physician shortage makes sense.
“There’s our vehicle,” he said. “There’s the best we can get our people to train and stay here.”
Vrebosh said northern municipalities have to let the province know about the issue.
“We have the chance to increase the numbers and the number of seats and get some of the north looked after,” he said.
“I look at this as a chance to let the government know that the north needs service. We have a right to live here and a right to good service.”
The CBC has requested a statement from the Ministry of Health and is waiting for a response.
‘They get it’
Dr. Sarita Verma, the CEO and dean at NOSM, said each year the university admits 64 students. More than 2,000 people apply, meaning there is a three per cent success rate of getting in.
Verma said the university was created to train and keep doctors in the region, which is what it has done.
“Sudbury alone has 98 more doctors than before NOSM,” she said.
“There are 80 more in Thunder Bay. 87 in rural communities.”
However, Verma said northern Ontario is still short more than 320 doctors.
“That’s five graduating classes of NOSM,” she said.
“The answer is to expand NOSM … and allow us to expand our residency programs.”
Verma said the school has been calling on the province to expand. She said they initially want to be able to admit 80 students each year and eventually move that up to 100 in undergrad and more than 100 in post-graduate programs.
She said so far, there has been no initial response from the province on increasing admissions.
“We need to get the attention of Queen’s Park,” she said.
“These municipalities like North Bay and Sault Ste. Marie … it’s happening everyday because they get it.”
‘Makes sense’
Dr. Sarah Newbery, a physician in Marathon and member of the Ontario Medical Association, said it’s important to get support from municipalities.
“The populations that they serve, the citizens of their communities need and want better access to health services,” she said.
“I think they’re aware that NOSM has been successful in many, many ways in producing doctors for the north and so expansion of NOSM makes sense.”
Newbery said she’s confident northern MPP’s are aware of the issue.
“We’ve learned through COVID that the shortages that we’re experiencing in the north prior to the pandemic have been magnified by the pandemic,” she said.
“Our citizens, our municipal levels of government and our provincial levels of government are seeing and hearing about that every day.”
