The Cure is a CBC News series examining strategies provinces and territories are using to tackle the primary care crisis.
When doctors Jacques and Mariska Neuhoff take their two kids to the park in their home in Williams Lake, they can just let their kids play.
And they never forget just how special that is.
They moved to the Interior B.C. community of around 11,000 people five years ago from Pretoria in South Africa. They didn’t want their children to have to grow up in gated communities.
“Here we have the freedom and the luxury of roaming free, having our kids play around, riding their bikes outside, visiting neighbors,” Said Jacques Neuhoff.
“That’s priceless, to be honest.”
It wasn’t easy getting here.
The couple estimates they spent about three years and around $60,000 on flights and exams before being certified to practise as family doctors and anesthesiologists.
“It’s a very long and tough process,” said Jacques.
But what awaited them was something special.
“We came into a home with a stocked fridge and a pantry from the community that put it there for us,” said Jacques.
The couple said people were knocking on the door every day, bringing dinner and welcoming them to the community.
“So those small things — well, it’s small things from someone else’s perspective, but a massive impact that it had on us,” said Jacques.
Three years ago, local city and health officials decided to formalize and fund that warm welcome the Neuhoff’s received and make it part of their recruitment and retention strategy.
The city, with funding from the Cariboo Chilcotin Regional Hospital Board, hired two healthcare landing co-ordinators with the aim of attracting long term and locum doctors to the city and the nearby District of 100 Mile House.
“We were having far too many hospital closures for people to be comfortable in our community,” said the city’s economic development manager, Beth Veenkamp.
“We really felt like we had to do something and get ahead of it,” she said.
Canada is in the grips of what some call a primary care crisis. An estimated 6.5 million people don’t have a primary health-care provider, and a separate report from Health Canada estimates the country needs 23,000 family doctors immediately to fill the gap.
As of November 2024, the Interior region of B.C. alone had about 75,000 people waiting to be connected with a doctor or nurse practitioner.
Veenkamp says their program is making a difference. New doctors are moving in, and locums are returning more reliably. The community was just able to open a new urgent care clinic to help people access physicians on the same day they need care.
“The doctors that are … deciding where they want to be permanently, then that gives them the opportunity to really sort of road test this community before they commit.”
Focus on personalized touches
Melissa LaPointe is one of those bringing the love. She moved to Williams Lake in 2005 from Mill River, PEI. She thought she’d only stay for a year and just never left.
She’s made a job of her love for the city as one of the community’s landing co-ordinators, taking over the program contract with the hospital board. Since it started, the program has grown. LaPointe has become the director, and there are plans to hire more staff.
“It’s taking the time to find out who’s actually coming here with you,” said LaPointe.
She finds out if the visiting doctors have kids and leaves a basket of toys in the rental where they are staying, stocks the fridge, and even meets people for yoga or takes them on walks or mountain bike rides in the region.
“We’ve gone as far as leaving a beer mug in the freezer for them. Just little things, but we take the time,” she said.
While the program started with a focus on locum physicians, it’s expanded into helping specialists, medical students and other health-care professionals.
The program has annual core funding of $176,000, but as it has grown, the program is now generating tens of thousands of its own revenue from services like accommodation rentals, storage, cleaning, and airport pick ups.
Local partners also help highlight daycare options and partner employment opportunities to prospective docs.
The B.C. government has also focused on partnering with local health authorities to try to improve rural health care in recent years, bringing in annual retention benefits, funding for rural travel costs, and education support.
LaPointe said she now manages 12 housing units to ensure incoming doctors have a place to stay that meets their needs.
Since February of 2024, Interior Health and the Central Interior Division of Family Practice say they have recruited six physicians and two specialists to Williams Lake, along with two doctors to 100 Mile House.
The B.C. government is in the process of trying to figure out the number of doctors in the province and what the demand will be going forward. The Ministry of Health hopes to have new estimates by the end of March 2025.
Relationships key to keeping rural doctors
Similar programs have been tried with success in other communities. Creston has had a recruiter in the community for more than a decade.
Dr. Johnny Chang came to Creston thinking he would just stay two years doing his return of service, but every time he thinks about leaving, he can’t.
“I’m too invested with the people in the relationships of the people here, right? You think it’s just two years. You think it’s transactional, but it’s not, right? That’s the beauty of a rural place.”
Now, as a board member with the B.C. College of Family Physicians, he says the personalized care that doctors receive is key to not only finding doctors but keeping them in rural communities.
“I think that type of idea that Williams Lake is using is key,” he said.
“It’s not necessarily monetary reasons why people come. It’s here for the community.”
LaPointe agrees. She says Williams Lake has built something “pretty magical.”
“We build relationships. And I will go as far as saying we’ve built a lot of friendships in the process.”
Work worth the challenges
Doctors Jacques and Mariska Neuhoff say they see benefits beyond the close relationships in the rural setting, having both quickly advanced their careers.
Jacques is now working as the chief of staff and Mariska as the head of the department of medicine at Cariboo Memorial Hospital in Williams Lake.
“Seeing how we have developed and what our opportunities are. It’s amazing.”
Now, the couple tries to pay it forward. They encourage other doctors, including those in South Africa, to choose rural B.C. And they’re sure to welcome new doctors when they arrive, offering dinner invites and tips on where to go in the city.
“Yes, you’ve got the lovely nature outside, and you’ve got the lakes outside, but other communities have that too, but not all the communities have this family feel within their colleagues, and that’s where you need to make the difference,” said Jacques Neuhoff.
