THUNDER BAY – Health care agencies in Thunder Bay and the surrounding region were looking to fill crucial vacancies at Monday’s Holiday Health Care Career Fair. Hosted by the Community Economic Development Commission (CEDC) at St. Joseph’s Heritage, the 18th annual event featured 15 exhibitors, including many of the region’s largest health sector employers.
Jennifer Learning, the Chief Nursing Officer at the Atikokan General Hospital, was attending for the first time. The town has been trying to recruit a physiotherapist for close to a year. In the meantime, patients needing therapy – often following surgeries like knee or hip replacements – have to travel over an hour to Thunder Bay or Fort Frances.
“It’s tough,” Learning says. “People are very concerned about not being able to get help close to home.”
She adds that recruiting from larger centres in southern Ontario is a challenge. “Most of the people applying live in Toronto, and they don’t understand the isolation of the north, don’t understand that it’s a two hour drive [to an airport], and they might not have a driver’s license.”
At the George Jeffrey Children’s Centre’s table, Human Resources Manager Stacy Greenwood was hoping to find occupational therapists, physical therapists, and speech-language pathologists.
“It has been challenging over the years,” she says. “We don’t have a school of rehabilitation sciences here in Thunder Bay, so we often look to other parts of the province for our recruitment needs.”
Greenwood echoed many of the recruitment challenges mentioned by Learning in bringing people to the north. But she says the employees they have recruited from southern Ontario in the past often grow to love Thunder Bay once they get here. About half an hour into the event, she said they had already made some connections with potential applicants.
The need for health care professionals is only expected to increase, as Thunder Bay’s population ages. Nurses, personal support workers, physiotherapists, and speech-language pathologists top the list of in-demand positions, according to the CEDC.
Lexie Penko, Community Health Sciences Recruiter with the CEDC, says that does present challenges for the region. However, she says it’s also an opportunity to offer young professionals good jobs with health care agencies.
“They’re some of the best employers in the region,” she says, pointing to competitive wages and good benefits as draws for the field. “What we try to do here today is show the public that there are fantastic careers for them in health care.”
Those interested in health care careers in the north can learn more by visiting the CEDC’s recruitment platform.
