The City of Quesnel and the Cariboo Chilcotin Regional Hospital District (CCRHD) have signed a new agreement to continue and to enhance the city’s health care recruitment program for the next three years.
The city’s contract with the CCRHD for the provision of physician and health professional recruitment and retention in the Quesnel area expired in 2019 and was extended for one year to the end of 2020, Amy Reid, the city’s director of economic development and tourism, told council during the Dec. 15 electronic council meeting.
In October, the CCRHD released an RFP for proponents to bid on the provision of services for the North Cariboo, Central and South Cariboo, or for the whole region. The City of Quesnel submitted a proposal for the North Cariboo and was awarded the contract.
“Included in this agreement are identical deliverables to the previous agreement,” said Reid. “The new agreement includes an increased budget for the health care recruitment co-ordinator contract position and an agreement to share the cost of any loss incurred in the renting and subletting of the apartment for physicians and healthcare professionals.”
The city rents a furnished two-bedroom, two-bathroom apartment in the Kikihnaw building in downtown Quesnel to provide short-term housing for new health care professionals.
The health care recruitment co-ordinator works to welcome health care professionals and their families and support their settlement in Quesnel.
The City of Quesnel has accessed funding through the CCRHD since 2015. The new contract has a total value of $161,275.43 over three years, according to Reid’s report to council.
“We’re the only ones that currently have a contract under this function of the CCRHD,” said Mayor Bob Simpson, who is chair of the CCRHD board. “That was a function of the Division of Family Practice was running a South and Central version of this, and the board was not satisfied with that contractor because by their nature, they were focused on primary care physicians only, to the exclusion of all other health care practitioners. So we’ve been working with Interior Health to try to figure out an alignment, and the board really considers what we’re doing here in Quesnel as what they want to see replicated in South and Central Cariboo. They figure we’re the Cadillac version, and that’s what they want to replicate.”
Simpson praised Reid and her team and the contractor doing this work — currently Beverlee Barr — for achieving the new contract and for running such a great program, noting the CCRHD considers this “a true class-act approach to this, and they’re very, very happy with what’s going on in the North Cariboo.”
The city’s health care recruitment program won a Community Project Award at the 2016 British Columbia Economic Development Association Awards.
READ MORE: Quesnel’s health care recruitment earns praise
During a special CCRHD meeting held Friday, Dec. 11, the board voted in favour of pursuing the idea of doing a similar program to roll out the red carpet for new health care professionals hired to work in Williams Lake and 100 Mile House.
CCRHD chair Bob Simpson said he, along with vice-chair Al Richmond and Cariboo Regional District chief administrative officer John MacLean, will meet with 100 Mile House and Williams Lake councils to discuss the possibility further.
“We don’t do any of the hard recruiting whatsoever,” Simpson told Black Press Media. “We simply try to make the health authorities’ recruiting efforts as successful as possible.”
Simpson said the role of the hired person would be to make sure when health care professionals come into the communities, they have the most successful and positive landing experience, are integrated into the community and then want to stay.
It is ‘really a red carpet and retention’ program for people that Interior Health and Northern Health are recruiting to fill vacancies, he added.
Hiring someone for Williams Lake and 100 Mile House could potentially model the health care recruitment co-ordinator position already in place in Quesnel.
During the special meeting, 100 Mile House Mayor Mitch Campsall voted against the proposal, saying his staff will not have any time to manage a contract for the position.
“We are so bogged down right now, we are unable to handle something like that,” Campsall said.
Simpson responded it has not been a lot of extra work for the economic development office in Quesnel.
Area E director Angie Delainey said she was in favour of the hiring someone for Williams Lake and 100 Mile House.
She added that it is time-sensitive because she is worried about burnout of medical professionals due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
— with files from Monica Lamb-Yorski
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