A new regional physician recruitment strategy for Grey Bruce is in the works.
Owen Sound Mayor Ian Boddy says it was developed by the Primary Care Recruitment Task Force and will be presented to both counties in the new year.
“There’s been collaboration with Grey and Bruce counties to promote a region as a place physicians want to work and live,” Boddy says during a year-end address to city council.
The Primary Care Recruitment Task Force was revived in Owen Sound in 2023. It estimated in a report to a city committee about a dozen new family doctors were needed in Owen Sound within three years to keep up with physician retirements and population growth, and to serve some 6,000 people without primary care.
Boddy says two new family doctors were successfully recruited to Owen Sound over the past year.
“City staff assisted in both by finding local employment for their spouses, so this is pretty positive,” Boddy explains. “The future possibility of working with medical isotopes in the area is also intriguing to both new physicians excited about the future of nuclear medicine, and to mid-career physicians looking for future research opportunities.”