Board votes to move ahead on Rainy River House

At the meeting of the full committee of on Tuesday May 30, the Locum Housing Project known as Rainy River House, the Board voted to move ahead. Blue prints for the project were ordered with the understanding that final approval may have to be modified to fit funding availability. However, an initial set of prints is necessary to move forward with the tendering and hence a firm budget.
Survey of the lots has been completed. Purchase of the lots has been approved. There are a myriad of details to complete including the formal agreement amongst the partners on funding levels and how the project might be administered including seed monies and bridge financing. Further information sessions with individual councils of the Project Partners are planned to address any individual concerns they may have and more fully explain various aspects of the Project including rough projected costs. A public information session is scheduled for Monday, June 20 at 7:00 p.m.in the Morley Millennium Hall for Stratton area residents. Dr. Dave Singleton will be the featured speaker at that session.
The Fundraising and Promotion Committee continues its work on a number of projects including some initiatives during RailRoad Daze in July in Rainy River. Sources of corporate sponsorship are being widely explored with some firm commitments offered and many more potentially promising opportunities identified.
Dr. Singleton concluded the meeting by reiterating the many positive aspects of practicing medicine in the Rainy River area.
We have a good hospital, a good clinic, and a great staff without the petty politics that trouble many other medical centres, he stated.
He added, the first class of the Northern Ontario Medical School is graduating this year and most are staying in Northern Ontario, and in Family Practice, a reverse of what happens in large urban centres where most go on to specialization. Singleton attributed at least some of this shift to the exposure that medical students have to family practices in places like Rainy River, where students get to see a diverse range of patients and conditions making their professional experience more varied and interesting.
“The only negative is the lack of relief,” he said.
You have only two- now 1 ½- full time doctors. If one suffers from burnout the load falls 100% on the other and very quickly you will have none, with no prospect of providing any medical care, let alone 24-hour emergency service.
The way to insure full coverage is to have a good supply of contract locums ready and willing to come to the community. They are going to service the communities where they feel welcome and have access to good, comfortable rental housing for them and hopefully their families, he concluded.
The next meeting of the full committee is scheduled for June 29 at 7:00 p.m. in Rainy River