More than half of the population of the small community of Casselman, Ont. is without a family doctor. The rural municipality is struggling to recruit talent due to a lack of funding incentives. At the Casselman Medical Centre, there are three thousand people on a waiting list for a family doctor. “It is getting to a dire situation,” said Jennifer Arenas, who is the office administrator at the medical centre. “We have a huge waiting list of patients who do not have access to primary care.” Arenas has been desperately trying to recruit doctors for years as the situation worsens. “We could easily accommodate another three physicians and get these patients being seen,” she said. But one of the major challenges is Casselman doesn’t score high enough on something called the Rurality Index for Ontario, which would unlock up to $120,000 in grants for doctors. “It is an incentive for them to go to rural locations,” said Arenas. “It helps offset their cost of relocating, it helps offset their cost of education, and so it’s definitely an incentive to set up their practice.” There are up to four thousand people in Casselman alone and the mayor says more than half don’t have a doctor. “It’s very stressful for them with an aging population that don’t necessarily drive,” said Geneviève Lajoie, Casselman’s mayor. “Accessing clinicians outside of the community and having to drive on the highway to get to Ottawa to busy Ottawa locations is very stressful.” Lajoie has appealed to the government as the situation continues to worsen. “We’ve asked for some sort of pilot project or some special subsidy program for Casselman and the response was, the answer’s no until it’s yes so we’re going to have to wait and see,” she said. In the meantime, at the medical centre says they’re not accepting new patients until they get more doctors, meaning those on the list will have to wait.
