The eight New Democratic MPPs in northern ridings are calling on the Conservative government to stop dragging its feet, and allow the Northern Ontario School of Medicine to have more residencies. That would allow it to admit more medical students.
Timmins MPP Gilles Bisson says it’s an obvious solution to the doctor shortage in the region.
“We know that the Northern School of Medicine, by and large most of those graduates end up back in Northern Ontario,” he remarks. “And especially if they do a residency somewhere in the North, they make friends, they start developing a lifestyle and they end up staying here.”
“It’s not a huge ticket item as far as cost,” Bisson continues, “and it’s something that would go a long way towards making sure that we’d be able to develop the capacity of having more physicians in our communities, so that people can find a doctor when they need them.”
Bisson notes it would also help rural communities elsewhere in the province.
(File photo by Bob McIntyre, MyKapuskasing Now.com staff)
