North Bay City Council’s support of an effort to attract new doctors to the community is paying off.

So says Dr. Ian Cowan of the North Bay Family Medicine Recruitment Program.

A few years ago they asked council for over $500,000 to help attract physicians here.

Dr Cowan says they’ve been successful bringing new doctors and that’s had a positive impact on health care in the community.

“Fourteen new recruits in the last three years and that’s an average of 1,200 patients a recruit. Now half went to established practices, but that’s still almost 10,000 patients these recruits took on,” he says.

On Tuesday night, the recruitment team asked the city for an additional $300,000 over three years.

“Each doctor would be allocated $25,000 and the hospital will match that for a total of $50,000 and that will be used as an incentive to start a practice,” Dr. Cowan says.

He says the goals are to attract 4-5 doctors a year.

Dr. Cowan estimates North Bay will need to replace 25 physicians over the next decade.

Filed under: dr-ian-cowan, physicians, recruitment