Funding for the Town of Yarmouth’s physician recruitment community navigator is getting a $5000 bump.

The motion to increase funds from $25,000 to $30,000 for the next three years was approved at last week’s council meeting.

“It’s tremendously important,” says Yarmouth Mayor Pam Mood. “The community navigator is out there every day recruiting doctors and medical personnel for the area. I don’t think there’s anyone out there that doesn’t know how important this is for us.”

She says they decided to up the funding after the Municipality of Argyle’s council did by the same amount.

Mood discussed the current situation surrounding doctors in the area.

“We do have doctors that are still retiring. Doctors used to take thousands of patients, now they’re not doing that so it takes quite a while to fill in those positions,” says Mood. “Our navigator is hard at work and those numbers are going up. It’s a really great success.”

She says recruitment has been going great so far.

“They have numbers, they keep us updated, they’re at conferences making contacts, they’re bringing residents to the area, there are local medical students,” says Mood. “They’re having site visits. I get to meet a lot of doctors that are coming in and considering this region.”