A program that assists rural and northern Ontario hospitals in avoiding temporary closures of their emergency rooms is scheduled to end at the conclusion of this month. The government has not indicated whether the program will be extended, made permanent, or terminated.
A lot of the province’s more isolated hospitals depend on doctors from urban areas working locum shifts, and the Temporary Locum Program pays them a bonus as an incentive.
Rural and northern hospitals have stated that the program has aided in keeping their emergency departments operational as they struggle with shortages of local doctors. However, its future is uncertain after the current expiry date of March 31.
Tim Vine, CEO of North Shore Health Network, which operates three sites between Sault Ste. Marie and Sudbury, expressed concern about the impending expiration of the incentive for locum physicians on April 1st.
He stated, “So, we wait with great anticipation and hope that it will be continued.”
The province established the COVID-19 Temporary Summer Locum Program during the pandemic, and it expired last March 31 before the government renewed it to Sept. 30, dropping the COVID-19 from the program title. Then in September the province extended it to March 31 of this year, again under a new name, the Temporary Locum Program.
The renewal announcement last spring came two months after it had actually expired, and in that interim period the lack of funding led to four temporary closures of Thessalon’s ER, which was relying entirely on locum physicians due to having no primary care physician in the community.
For that site, there are now two local physicians, but it still heavily depends on outside doctors, Vine said. He added that across all three North Shore sites, the network is 50 per cent locum dependent.
Vine expressed hope that the program will be extended, as he fears for the ability of their hospital and many small, rural hospitals to continue staffing their emergency departments without it.
The Ontario Medical Association has also emphasized the importance of the program to the Ministry of Health.
“The OMA is aware of the expiry date for the most recent extension of the Temporary Locum Program and has raised this issue with the ministry,” the doctors’ group said in a statement.
A spokesperson for Health Minister Sylvia Jones did not indicate what will happen after March 31.
“Last fall, our government extended the Temporary Locum Program to provide support to rural and local hospitals,” Hannah Jensen wrote in a statement. “All hospitals in need of physician coverage stayed open throughout the summer.”
“Our government will have more to say about the future of this program in the near future.”
NDP health critic France Gelinas said the government needs to come up with a permanent solution, instead of constantly renewing the program on a temporary basis at the last minute.
She said, “I don’t know why they keep doing this.
“There are no Uber physicians who are just waiting for the phone to ring so they can go up north. That doesn’t exist. I mean, they book their locums a long time in advance.”
The province has stated that it provides assistance to hospitals in other ways, such as an additional emergency locum program, covering expenses for medical residents during clinical assignments in northern ERs, and a virtual peer-to-peer program for rural and remote ER doctors.
Melanie Goulet, recruitment co-ordinator for health professionals at Notre-Dame Hospital in Hearst, Ont., said that the other emergency locum program serves as a backup. Having a program like the Temporary Locum Program permanently in place would be beneficial, she mentioned.
Goulet expressed that it would be reassuring to have this program in place consistently, rather than constantly worrying about its availability in the future.
“Schedulers are already planning six months ahead so they’re already way late to give answers.”
