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The Lindsay Post is running a weekly series of questions, with answers by both the "Yes" and "No" sides of the issues.
Question #11: How would your system work best to attract health care professionals to our area?
Small town atmosphere will attract professionals
Instead, it's good people and healthy lifestyles that will coax physicians and other health care workers into an area. For that matter, it's people and lifestyles that will attract an influx of newcomers to the area, whether they are doctors, teachers, plumbers, or candlestick makers.
Why do people relocate from one community to another? Ask anyone who has moved into our community over the last dozen years and they will tell you they were anxious to get out of the big city of Toronto, or the Greater Toronto Area. They wanted the quieter lifestyle, fresh country air, less traffic, lower housing costs, proximity to recreational facilities such as fishing, skiing, swimming, snowmobiling and, oh yes, lower property taxes.
As the mayor himself, no shrinking violet when it comes to boosting the City of Kawartha Lakes, pointed out in these pages on May 23rd, a number of grass-roots groups began working before amalgamation to lure doctors into the region with some success.
Such groups as Bobcaygeon Wellness 2000, The Kinmount District Health Services Foundation, Woodville Medical Clinic, the Fenelon Falls Medical Clinic, the Kirkfield Medical Clinic, the Coboconk Medical Centre Trust Association, and the Ross Memorial Hospital physician recruitment task force, are selling their respective regions based on the amenities which they have to offer.
In some cases, modest monetary inducement might be offered, such as assistance in setting up shop, or a free trip into the area to look us over, or in-kind services such as golf club memberships or holiday accommodation to doctors who cover vacation shifts at the local hospital.
Let's hope that we will never have to stoop to offering whacking great bribes from the tax coffers to induce a doctor to open a practice here. If all that the City of Kawartha Lakes system of government has to offer is cash, count us out.
If the City of Kawartha Lakes were to offer a million dollars to bribe a doctor into the region, he might relocate in Lindsay, which is fine for Lindsay, but not very helpful to Kirkfield. Or she might bring her family to Coboconk at the expense of taxpayers in Omemee. We hope that cheque-book doctor recruiting never comes to pass, regardless of whether we vote to de-amalgamate or not. We think that it won't.
Even the Mayor, in a fair and balanced article on the subject points out that "The Kinmount experience shows us how the efforts and spirit of an entire community, coupled with some government assistance, can be the recipe for success."
Whichever system wins the November 10th referendum vote, it will be a challenge to attract health care professionals. Real cities such as Toronto have a lot to offer doctors: first class teaching hospitals, first class technology, the specialists to whom patients might be referred, the supporting healthcare industry, and all of the other non-medical inducements such as opera, theatre, symphony orchestras, professional sports teams and so forth.
What Toronto can't offer is the small-town environment that, not surprisingly, many people, including doctors, prefer: a sense of community, civic pride, quiet neighborhoods, safe streets and lower taxes. These qualities the small towns and villages of Victoria County have in abundance. A restored County-style and smaller municipalities-system of government is at least as capable of competing for health care professionals as our own mega-city.