The Town of Arcola will be the third community this fall within the Sun Country Regional Health Authority to lose a resident doctor, and perhaps some of its medical services as a result.

Marga Cugnet, vice-president of primary and integrated health care for the region, said Tuesday the doctor in Arcola has given notice and will be gone by the end of December.

Pangman and Fillmore have already lost their doctors and some of their hospital services this fall, as a result of the departures.

"We're hoping we have someone recruited who can take his place," said Cugnet. But if no doctor is secured, acute care services at the Arcola hospital will be affected, she said.

The Arcola doctor currently shares services with a doctor in Carlyle, where a long-term care facility is situated.

But Cugnet said if no one is found for Arcola, "it would be tough for the Carlyle doctor to cover both facilities and communities over the long term, so we couldn't keep the Arcola hospital."

However, there are no other anticipated changes in the works for other communities in the region through to next year, said Cugnet.

While utilization rates in some other areas are just as low as Pangman, no changes to the acute care services are expected in those communities because their hospitals are connected to long-term care facilities, she said.

"This is not just a Sun Country issue," said Cugnet. "Other regions are facing challenges with small practices, too."

It's also not a problem that has just come up recently, she noted. "It's not a recent trend. It's occurred over the last couple of decades in smaller communities."

Lampman, Midale and Gainsborough are three area towns that enjoyed the services of resident physicians until probably 15 years ago, she noted.

Once they lost their resident physician, partly because they exercised their freedom of choice to go to doctors in other communities, they were unable to recruit replacements, she said.