Medical practice in the North isn’t easy.
The social determinants of health make us northerners much sicker which makes medical practice more complex. Regardless of this, when we finished training as medical specialists, we had no interest in southern Ontario. Northern Ontario was our home and we intended to stay here.
Sault Ste Marie made the most sense for us professionally, so we made the leap to move here even though we had no connections to SSM.
We love living and working in Sault Ste Marie. Our employers are excellent, the teams we work with are phenomenal, and SSM is just a great city to live in and start a family. We knew that with us both being busy physicians that there would be challenges starting a family here. The most worrisome was childcare. We knew we had to get on the list early, so we signed up 6 months before our little boy was born.
We were thrilled when we found out that we had got an infant spot at the YMCA on McNabb street. It was close to home, close to work, and the program and staff at the YMCA are exceptional. Our son loves the Y and they truly love him back. He’s excited to go in the morning and happy as a clam when we pick him up. The activities he does at daycare help him grow and develop, he gets a nutritious lunch, and even at 10 months old he seems to have made some great friends.
You can imagine our dismay when we heard the YMCA was closing. This was followed by elation that a tentative deal was struck to keep it open thanks to quick action by community members, local leaders, and a generous benefactor. The Y is important for Sault Ste Marie for so many important reasons. We could write at length about its many contributions to a healthy community, but for brevity we’ll focus on the important childcare role they play in SSM.
If the Y were to close, it would be very difficult for my wife and I to both continue practice. Without family nearby, our best-case scenario would be that one of us would be off for many months caring for the little one. With the current shortage of healthcare providers in the area, this would be the last thing we would want to happen. Furthermore, I would worry about the impact it would have on attracting more physicians. It is already difficult for physicians with a young family to move here given the current daycare waitlist. If that list were to lengthen due to a YMCA closure, recruitment would be that much more difficult. Ready access to daycare is critical to attracting health professionals to the area. For young health professionals who want families, all other incentives and recruitment programs would be meaningless when deciding to move here if they are unable to both practice and raise a family.
We’re not the only physicians relying on the Y for childcare and we are certainly not the only working parents who would be affected by the closure. With 500+ daycare spots at risk, the impact of a closure on our local workforce would be immense. The impact to the affected families would also be devastating, particularly for those with lower incomes. This fact is not lost on our local leaders. They have quite rightly recognized the risks of losing the YMCA and have taken action. They have cited that the costs of losing the YMCA are far greater than the costs of investing in its continuance. Fighting for the YMCA is not rallying to keep a local gym open, but rather an investment in maintaining a local pillar of the community.
Saving the Y isn’t the only step to improving childcare availability in SSM. Investments in training more Early Childhood Educators and increases in daycare spots and programs are also critical. These long-term goals are very important, but in the near-term the most important step we can take is preserving the childcare capacity we currently have.
Dr. Emily Cook and Dr. John Tuinema