Vancouver Island city-owned clinic on track to sign two more doctors, mayor says

COLWOOD — A British Columbia city on Vancouver Island that’s hiring doctors as municipal employees is “very close” to hiring two more physicians, and its mayor believes it will eventually exceed its goal of hiring eight in total.

Colwood Mayor Doug Kobayashi said Monday that the city-owned clinic currently has one doctor, and employment contracts are soon to be inked with two more, while a fourth is expected to be on board by September.

Kobayashi said other cities are continuing to inquire about replicating its model to attract doctors by signing them on as city employees.

“We gave ourselves two years to recruit all eight doctors and I think we’re going to be able to beat that,” he said.

Kobayashi said they’ve have had a lot of applications, but they’re only trying to recruit from out-of-province to avoid poaching physicians with active practices in other B.C. communities.

“You don’t rob Peter to pay Paul,” he said. “This is what’s making the process a little bit slower than we were hoping.”

He said the doctors being brought in are from Alberta and Ontario, but the recent announcement from the B.C. Ministry of Health about recruiting health care professionals from the United States is a “game changer.”

The Health Ministry said last month that fast-tracking the recognition of American credentials could attract health care professionals to B.C., and Kobayashi said that before the province’s announcement, the expense of bringing in an American doctor was thought to be too high.

He said the process has now been “streamlined,” but some challenges remain for foreign-trained doctors, such as an English language proficiency test even for a doctor that’s coming to Colwood from Ireland.

Kobayashi said Colwood is now planning to start advertising on social media in the United States, the United Kingdom and South Africa to recruit more doctors.

He said Colwood and nearby Langford have been growing quickly with new housing and residents, and the long-term goal in his city is to have a health care facility offering services not currently available, such as X-rays.

“We don’t even have a LifeLabs in our city,” he said. “It’s kind of crazy. We have to drive some place to get blood work done and that’s just nuts.”

Kobayashi said Colwood has more than 20,000 residents, and a full-service health care facility nearby “makes sense for a community of our size to have.”

He said several other municipalities have inquired about the Colwood Clinic’s city-owned model because of similar issues with retaining doctors, and though it has experienced “growing pains,” the facility’s first staff doctor has “become part of the community.”

“She’s been absolutely involved in our community, which is a great thing,” he said. “It’s just been phenomenal.”

This report by The Canadian Press was first published April 21, 2025.

The Canadian Press