2009-04-06
06:43:20
Concerns are being raised that some of the graduating students from the Northern Ontario School of Medicine might not end up working in the north.
Several municipalities, including the town of Fort Frances, have supported Sault Ste. Marie's request for the Health Minister to ensure med students who continue specialist training in the south return to the north. Sault Ste. Marie Mayor John Roswell fears cuts to hospital funding will prevent them from coming back.
"We set up the northern Ontario school of medicine to give us family doctors," says Roswell, "and they will be here for us, I know that. But the specialists that we need as bad as family doctors - there won't be positions for them to come home to because of the cutbacks in health care in northern Ontario with the hospitals."
"There is a real problem. There's a total disconnect right now because we're going to have our students, who are set up with the Northern Ontario School of Medicine to look after us as doctors in the north, not coming home because there's not going to be a specialty service in that town or city."
Roswell says the region is facing a shortage of specialists, and the province's policies only undermine the Medical School's full potential.
