Physician and health-care worker retention and attraction is neither a new issue nor a localized one.
The Town of Hinton, however, has a new tool to help tackle the problem.
The Attraction and Retention Committee of Hinton (ARCH) is developing a community-driven approach to address it.
It comes in the wake of an unexpected temporary closure at the emergency department at the Hinton Healthcare Centre earlier this month. The cause: a sudden and unexpected gap in staff coverage.
That event itself came on the heels of a mid-April weekend of absent obstetrical services due to a lack of obstetrical-trained nursing staff.
Something – anything – has to be done, organizers say.
“We believe that there are areas where purposeful initiatives will showcase our community as a supportive and connected place to practice medicine, assist physicians new to Hinton in settling here, and demonstrate our support for health-care providers in Hinton already caring for our residents,” stated co-chair Fiona Murray-Galbraith in a media release.
“It will take a combination of strategies focused on these areas to create the outcomes the committee is seeking, and we are confident that our work will make a difference.”
ARCH was formed as a sub-committee under the Hinton Healthcare Foundation with representatives from the Town of Hinton, Alberta Health Services, local health-care representatives and the Rural Health Professionals Action Plan (RhPAP) all at the table. The Hinton and District Chamber of Commerce is also there to offer its support.
“This issue has developed over time, with service providers retiring or leaving Hinton, and fewer new doctors and nurses moving to town,” said ARCH co-chair Emily Olsen.
“We are working on a coordinated community-driven approach for retention and attraction coupled with a commitment for support from AHS and RhPAP.”
Additional representatives from local industry and organizations will be sought out to round out the board with a broader perspective on local needs.
The process of attracting and retaining health-care workers in rural Alberta is not a simple endeavor, says Hinton Mayor Nicholas Nissen.
“It's a complicated process,” he said, mentioning multiple agencies, municipalities and health care organizations must all work in concert. “There's an entire set procedure around it.”
Essentially, AHS oversees recruitment while the attraction and retention committees are set up to help facilitate that goal. They do that through recruitment drives, appreciation and recognition events. When a new health-care worker comes in, they are toured around the community to help induce their relationship to the people and the place.
“Once they've been attracted, we show them this is a nice community to live in, then we retain them by integrating them into the community,” Nissen said.
“The attraction retention committee is designed to provide that level of service.”
Olsen said Hinton had historically been able to retain new doctors after they complete a residency at the health-care centre and clinic.
“Dedicated efforts and resources to this kind of attraction are now being developed as part of the committee’s strategy, with the focus on creation of a positive and appreciative environment for those already caring for our residents, and for those considering Hinton as a connected and supportive place to practice medicine,” Olsen said.
The Town of Hinton has put up $7,000 in short-term funding but ARCH will also need further fundraising to provide for travel and attendance at trade shows, hiring fairs, and other events where Hinton can be promoted to new graduates, or to physicians and health-care professionals newly locating to Canada.
Nissen added that it is still unclear how the newly announced restructuring of AHS is going to affect this process, if at all.
“How that is going to work, I'd love to say that I know. It's still at the provincial level; the legislation’s not all the way through. We haven't seen all the regulations, but from an attraction and recruitment committee process perspective, I don't know that there will be a lot of change to the way that the attraction retention committee works as healthcare in this province overall goes through changes.”
Olsen added that the committee has acknowledged that there are some factors involved in the health-care landscape that it may not be able to address.
“With our local government officials involved, including Hinton’s mayor and Council, as well as MLA Long, attention to the issue of rural health care at the provincial level is happening,” she said.
