By Jeff Helsdon
It’s hoped a nurse practitioner clinic will be part of the answer to Tillsonburg’s doctor shortage.
An application has been filed by the Ingersoll Nurse Practitioner-Led Clinic to open a second location in Tillsonburg. This clinic currently has a roster of 3,200 patients. It is a health care hub with services offered by Canadian Mental Health Association on site.
Stephanie Nevins, executive director of the clinic, said it is not a walk-in clinic, but has 3,200 patients enrolled. Each nurse practitioner has a case load of 800 patients.
“Part of the mandate is to provide access to patients who do not have a primary care provider,” she said.
In June 2023, an application was made to Ontario Health and the Ministry of Health to expand the Ingersoll clinic with a Tillsonburg location. The goal of such a clinic would be to enroll 3,200 patients who are currently unattached. Tillsonburg was not selected.
Oxford MPP Ernie Hardeman explained there is a points-based approval system and the Tillsonburg application didn’t make the cut. He said they were a few points short.
“The numbers were just not quite what they needed,” he said.
Hardeman explained that the 2022 numbers, which is the last year with complete numbers, showed an increase in the number of family physicians by 25.8 per cent for Oxford County, while there was only 8.5 per cent population growth. This increased the ratio of doctors per 10,000 people from 7.52 to 8.72.
Hardeman, whose family doctor is in Tillsonburg, is quite aware of the situation, and that the town’s population has jumped in leaps and bounds since 2022 while there have been doctor retirements. He did point out there are currently two doctors taking patients in Woodstock.
The Oxford MPP is in the process of setting up a meeting with the Ontario Medical Association to get better numbers. He has been pushing for the nurse practitioner clinic in Tillsonburg, and raises it with the minister every chance he gets.
“The big challenge is government doesn’t tell doctors where to practice,” he said. “A doctor looks around Ontario and there is no community who wouldn’t take them if they wanted to go there.”
A local challenge is Hardeman understands doctors like the Family Health Team model. This is not the funding model used in the existing doctor clinics in Tillsonburg.
What is being done locally
The situation locally is – to use a medical term – becoming more acute with the retirement of four doctors in Tillsonburg. In other terms, it could be called a crisis.
Tillsonburg Mayor Deb Gilvesy and Deputy Mayor Dave Beres, who is the chair of the Tillsonburg Hospital Health Care Committee, were both concerned about the doctor shortage and had high hopes the nurse practitioner clinic will come to fruition.
The town is working on many different angles trying to solve the issue. One of these solutions is hiring a physician recruiter in partnership with the hospital. Other possibilities, which were still in the early stages, couldn’t be discussed yet.
For more in-depth coverage on this ongoing matter, be sure to check out the first print issue of The Tillsonburg Post on Sept. 19.
The role of nurse practitioners
Nurse practitioners can provide primary care services in a manner similar to a family doctor, but there are a few things they are not authorized to do such as fill out a few forms and order nuclear medicine tests. There is a consulting doctor required to be associated with the clinic.
“Nurse practitioners, and this model, is not a replacement for a family physician, it’s just a different model of care,” Nevins said.
One of the goals, if a Tillsonburg clinic was approved, is to utilize interdisciplinary teams and enable partnerships with existing doctors to let their patients access some of these other services.
The Ingersoll clinic is funded through Ontario Health. Nurse practitioners do not bill OHIP but are paid directly by the ministry through a transfer payment agreement. The Ingersoll clinic is governed by a board or directors and there are no individual stakeholders, such as in some physician funding models.
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