After serving at the Quadra Island Medical Clinic for eight years, Dr Steve Hughes will soon be retiring. That puts the island in a difficult spot and inn this morning’s interview Marc Doll, Chair of the Quadra Island Foundation, explains how his organization and the clinic have teamed and raised more than $50,000 towards finding Hughes replacement.
Marc Doll: “Dr. Hughes, who I believe is the doctor for several people on Cortes as well, is retiring. He’s stretched out his retirement as far as he can. Come September, he will be doing the official retirement, which puts that clinic, which is anchored by a doctor, in a stressful position.”
“The Quadra Island Health Society, which was formed last time a doctor left that clinic, has been searching for a doctor for some time now, and it’s been a rough rough ride. It’s hard to find doctors willing to come to specialized clinics in rural settings. So they decided, as a board, to reach out to a professional healthcare recruiter. That comes with a pretty hefty price tag, at least from my perspective, and the decision was to go to the community to find the funds to hire a recruiter to bring a doctor, to the island to keep that clinic open.”
“So about two weeks ago, they came to us to ask us if we would engage in a project for them to hire a recruiter. We sat down as a board, decided it was within our charitable purposes, set up the fund, and let it be known to the community that this was happening. We expected it would take a couple of months to find that amount of funds, and it was less than two weeks before we actually exceeded the target.”
“Now the recruiter is at work, and we keep bringing our fingers crossed that this process will work and bring a doctor to the island.”
Cortes Currents: Do you have any idea how long it would take through the process to find a doctor?
Marc Doll: “Well, that’s the $10,000 question, right? Can you find somebody?”
“And if you find somebody, is it somebody that will be a fit for that particular office ’cause, as most people know, that office isn’t just simply a doctor’s office. It saves us from having to go to Campbell River for every blood test. There’s a community health nurse running out of that office, and a lot of other things.”
“So it’s probably not as simple as just finding any first-year doctor that’s willing to go there.”
“We have to be optimistic. We know that we’ve had doctors leave this island, in the last few years. Every time, even though it, took six, seven, eight months longer than you would expect, we managed to always fill those gaps. It helps that both quadra is an amazing community, beautiful place to live, easy access to Campbell River.”
“So all those things are benefits, but there are dozens of communities and probably hundreds of offices across British Columbia that are short doctors at this point.”
Cortes Currents: Is there anything you would like to add?
Marc Doll: “Just a big thank you to everybody on the islands that stepped up, put their money forward to make this make this program a success and hopefully the program itself will be a success. Then I think a word of appreciation to the hard work of the volunteer board of the Health Society and the volunteer board of the Quadra Island Foundation that put in a lot of hours to get to this point.”
Links of Interest:
- The Quadra Way: When It Matters, We Do It Together – The Bird’s Eye
- Articles about, or mentioning, the shortage of doctors and nurses in BC
- The Quadra Island Medical Clinic
- The Quadra Island Foundation
Top image credit: Medical Recruitment Fundraising Goal Achieved – Marc Doll
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