Town council requested more information about incentives for physicians and financially supporting medical clinics during its Tuesday (June 10) committee of the whole meeting.

Committee also moved to direct administration to establish a working group with local physicians, two council members and administration to develop solutions and review municipal support for health care.

Although health care is a provincial responsibility, the Town has been taking an active role in this area over the last year amid the community’s doctor shortage.

“This is something that we’re doing because we’re forced in the situation where the municipality is getting involved in health-care funding,” and Coun. Ryan Maguhn. “And it shouldn’t be [this way], but again, if I’m in the boat and it’s sinking, I’m going to grab a bucket and I’m going to start bailing it, so we’re dealing with an imperfect situation.”

Last year, the Town declared a local health care crisis and pledged $1 million over a two-year period to the Hinton Healthcare Foundation. This funding is used to deficit fund the Hinton Medical Clinic’s operations, reducing overhead costs for the clinic’s physicians.

Both of Hinton’s local medical clinics have since formally approached the Town requesting municipal support, and administration identified three options for council’s consideration.

The first was direct incentives or subsidies to health-care workers such as accommodation support, direct cash incentives and return-of-service bursaries.

The second was continuing financial support for the Hinton Medical Clinic and start supporting Aspirare Health, the other clinic.

The final was Town ownership of assets such as clinic buildings and clinic practices or take the lead on analyzing “arms-length ownership models” such as a non-profit or a municipally controlled corporation.

Councillors expressed interest in providing incentives or subsidies directly to doctors, but they expressed no interest in ownership. Some were also hesitant about subsidizing clinics directly.

Coun. Trevor Haas said the difference between the first two options was the first was about supporting individual physicians whereas the second was about providing financial support to a private business.

“This is a business, and I don’t want to get involved in a business,” Haas said.

Coun. Albert Ostashek said he stood by his decision to provide $1 million to the Hinton Medical Clinic as a necessary stopgap but was worried about setting a precedent for other private businesses and wanted to wait until the two-year term was up to see if this subsidization was working.

He added there was a concern about “equity and fairness,” since one clinic was being supported while the other was not.

Coun. Kristen Chambers agreed this one-off support would have to be reviewed, but noted an incentive program would not help clinics in the short term, since it would take time to develop.

“I don’t think we should wait for a year to have a conversation about how to equitably deal with both clinics,” Chambers said.

Maguhn wanted to explore both doctor incentives and clinic subsidization, since it was more complicated than a “one-size-fits-all approach,” but acknowledged that both the federal and provincial governments were “shirking” their responsibility.

Mayor Nicholas Nissen said he had been “on the fence” about subsidizing the clinics, particularly after hearing the recent report from the Hinton Healthcare Foundation.

“We found out last week that – and this distresses me – that we’re spending on average $20,000 a month to have receptionists sit in a locked room with the lights off in the afternoons,” Nissen said. “We haven’t seemingly added to health care in Hinton with what we’ve done.”

However, Nissen was swayed into getting more information on subsidizing clinic to see what the Town’s options were.

Coun. JoAnn Race was uncomfortable with requesting more information on the options without first consulting local physicians.

“Unless we have the doctors at the table, I can’t support this,” Race said.

Chambers agreed that it was important to get feedback from health-care workers, but argued that council couldn’t have those discussions without more information from administration.

To get feedback from physicians, committee opted for establishing a working group.