Rural and remote doctors are burning out. What will it take to help them?

Some of those working in the medical field say a federal promise to forgive loans for rural and remote doctors is like putting a band-aid on a broken bone.

The federal government is offering more money to incentivize doctors and nurses to work in rural and remote communities where medical access is most dire across the country.

The government will now forgive up to $60,000 of Canada Student Loans for family physicians and up to $30,000 for nurses or nurse practitioners working in rural and remote communities over a five-year period — a 50 per cent increase in loan forgiveness.

The government estimates the move will attract nearly 1,200 more doctors and 4,000 more nurses to rural communities over the next decade. But those working in the medical field say this funding is like putting a band-aid on a broken bone.

Almost 20 per cent of Canadians live in rural, remote, Indigenous, coastal or northern communities, but only eight per cent of physicians practise in non-urban areas of Canada.

It’s a sobering statistic that Cindy Snider knows well.

For the past 16 years, Snider has worked as a recruitment and retention coordinator with the Kawartha Lakes Health Care Initiative to entice family doctors to practice in the rural community of Kawartha Lakes, Ont. She used to recruit about two to three doctors per year. In the last four years, she said the amount of family doctors to recruit has dried up.

To serve the roughly 75,000 citizens of Kawartha Lakes — comprising several rural villages spanning more than 3,000 square kilometres in central Ontario — Snider said roughly 63 family doctors would be needed. The area currently has only 29.

“It’s almost 41,000 citizens (who are) either without or are traveling out of the area to their family doctor, which is huge for a rural community,” Snider said.