Photo from the Town of Sexsmith Facebook page

By Curtis Galbraith

Health

Doctor shortage in Sexsmith prompts recruiting effort

Jun 14, 2019 | 2:27 PM

Sexsmith needs doctors.

Town Council recently approved a doctor recruitment task force meant to attract more family physicians to the community.

Mayor Kate Potter says this is a common issue for a lot of rural, northern communities.

“Right now, we’re basically down to one regular doctor, who has locums coming on the side to help relieve some of the pressure. He doesn’t have the time to recruit and it’s becoming more difficult, so we need to step up as a community and assist in that to make sure we have doctors here to serve residents, but really, they serve the whole area.”

She adds the Sexsmith clinic currently has close to 8000 patients.

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“I believe our doctor said we that could house five doctors total in our clinic. We are looking for any doctors that would be willing to come here.”

Potter says she and four residents are on the task force.

“Our goal is to create some promotional material, but also to get out there to where the new doctors or existing doctors, when they’re looking for a new practice, to connect there. Whether that’s with the resident’s programs at the university or there are number of journals,when doctors are looking for a new place to practice or to settle, that they go to.”

Potter says they want to create a recruitment package that shows Sexsmith offers a lot of amenities and is not as remote as people from other places might think.

She adds that while Sexsmith does not have specialists, the community’s current doctor told town council that it would be possible to expand the clinic’s offerings and have specialist appointments once a month some time in the future. The issue of having enough family doctors would have to be solved first.