VANDERHOOF - Not a single 2011 family practice graduate of the Northern Medical Program was successfully recruited by Northern Health, but Dr. Charles Jago expects that will change.
"The 2011 results reflect the entering class of 2005 and I was very unhappy with the composition of that entering class," Jago, the chairman of the Northern Health board of directors said Monday following a meeting in Vanderhoof. "Following that we worked very closely with UBC to make sure we were selecting people who were more likely to want to work and live in small communities."
In 2010 there were 16 family practice graduates from the program, with nine recruited by Northern Health. In 2011 there were 10 grads, all of whom ended up working elsewhere - although some did end up in rural practices in other regions of the province. In 2012 two of the 10 family practice grads stayed in the north.
Jago expects that number will increase in the future now that two thirds of the entering class each year are either from small communities, are UNBC grads or have lived in the north.
"The ones who are doing their residency program in the north now, who are Northern Medical Program students are now saying they will take up their practice here," he said.
Currently seven graduates from the 2013 class have expressed an intention of working in the Northern Health area.
New doctors
Eight new physicians began working in Northern Health over the past two months, all in the northern interior region. Prince George welcomed three family doctors, one internal medicine physician and one psychiatrist. There are two new family doctors in Fort St. James and one in Mackenzie.
There are still 48 physician vacancies across the region, including 29 in the interior. Family practice doctors make up the bulk of those job openings, but there are 10 internal medicine positions open in the region and two pathology jobs.
Vamderhoof renos move ahead
Renovations to the emergency room and outpatient facilities at St. John Hospital in Vanderhoof are finally expected to get underway soon.
Vanderhoof Mayor Gerry Thiessen asked the board for an update on the progress of the renovations, which he said was on the table when he was elected four years ago.
"We never lost our commitment to do the project, it was doing the right project," Jago said. "There was enough misgiving about the first design that we really had to revisit it."
Northern Health chief operating officer for the northern interior region Michael McMillan told the board he expects a contract to be awarded soon and construction will start as soon as April. The work is expected to take nine to 12 months to complete.
McMillan said working around the construction will be challenging for staff, but worth it in the end.
"The long term impact [for the community] is that there will be a better space," he said. "To get there we'll have to go through some short-term pain."
The cost of the project was originally pegged at $2 million, but the delay and re-visioning of the plan has seen the cost more than double to $5 million.
"There's always concerns when you have to delay a project, but I think the delay was wise," Northern Health CEO Cathy Ulrich said. "It allowed us to re-group and really look at what we wanted to accomplish inside the facility."
The added cost was due to the reconfiguring of the existing plan.
"It will go ahead and I think it will be $5 million that will be an excellent investment for this community," Ulrich said.
Cost savings
Northern Health is projecting a $6 million surplus for the year.
Currently the health authority is more than $10 million in the black, but that's expected to change once the higher cost winter season is accounted for. So far this year revenues have come in slightly underbudget, but expenses are down even more in large part due to job vacancies.
The health authority is also seeing savings of about $1.2 million through group purchasing of equipment via the Health Shared Services BC (HSSBC) group.
Ulrich noted those savings are in addition to the budgeted savings Northern Health expected and more costs could be cut in future years.
"I think that number will continue to grow," she said.
The transition from Northern Health doing its own supply chain management to having HSSBC handle it for all health authorities hasn't been without its difficulties.
"There's always challenges when you take something that you've done in house and transition it to another organization who doesn't necessarily know the people in the north or the context of where our communities are," Ullrich said, noting things have been improving.
