Three more family doctors have already moved to St. Thomas this year, with a fourth on the way in October. City council is set to approve $132,000 to help all four get their practices off the ground. The money comes from the Health Recruitment Partnership, a joint effort between the city, Elgin County, St. Thomas Elgin General Hospital and local physicians that has worked since 2008 to bring family doctors to a region where thousands of residents cannot find one.
Each of the four doctors is in line for a $33,000 grant, interest free and forgivable as long as they stay and practice in St. Thomas or Elgin County for at least four years. The money is meant to cover the real costs of opening a practice: office space, equipment, technology and staff. Council is expected to vote on all four tonight, September 21st. If approved, they will be the fifth through eighth such grants the city has handed out in 2026 alone. Separate by-laws on the same night’s agenda would let the mayor and clerk sign each agreement, so the money could move as soon as council votes, except for Dr. Moglan’s share, which waits until she starts in October.
Three of the four doctors have already moved to St. Thomas. Dr. Syed Shahzeb Gillani joined Thompson Medical Centre full-time on August 10th. Dr. Bijoux Mimpongo, who trained in the Democratic Republic of Congo and South Africa before practicing for several years in Quebec, joined the community full-time on September 1st and will practice at Dr. Collins Family Health Practice on Confederation Drive. Dr. Cynthia Ebuele, trained in Nigeria and the United Kingdom, joined Thompson Medical Centre on September 11th. The fourth, Dr. Elisabeta Moglan, a McMaster University medical graduate who trained at Western University, is set to join a practice on Talbot Street on October 19th.
Each doctor met with the city’s health recruiter and the city manager to talk through their move and their plans for building a practice. The Health Recruitment Partnership’s committee reviewed and approved all four requests at its September 14th meeting before sending them to council.
Four of this year’s eight grants started even earlier. Council approved incentive grants for Dr. Ahmed Osman, Dr. Seyi Olanipekun, Dr. Chibuike Egwim and Dr. Zeeshan Chattaroo back on June 8th, and passed the by-laws for all four on July 13th. All four were headed to the same place: a new St. Thomas location of Thompson Medical Centre, a clinic group based in London. At that June meeting, Councillor Lori Baldwin-Sands, who chairs the Health Recruitment Partnership, told council she had visited the clinic. She said it expected to eventually roster 10,000 patients, with one doctor already seeing patients. The city manager told council five physicians would work out of the clinic in all.
Thompson Medical Centre’s own website now lists five doctors under its St. Thomas team: Dr. Osman, Dr. Olanipekun, Dr. Egwim, Dr. Chattaroo, and Dr. Gillani, whose own grant is up for approval tonight. Dr. Ebuele, the other doctor on tonight’s agenda, practices at that same Elm Street address too, according to her own city report. If council approves all four grants tonight, six of the eight doctors the city has funded through Health Recruitment grants this year will be working at that same clinic.
The grants add to a program that has helped recruit and keep more than 50 doctors and nurse practitioners in St. Thomas and Elgin County since 2008, according to St. Thomas Economic Development. The need has stayed large. As of the partnership’s most recent strategic plan, about 20,000 Elgin County residents have no family doctor. The county needs roughly 14 more doctors to reach a standard of one doctor for every 1,380 patients.
For residents, the grants themselves do not change anything overnight. Building a new practice’s patient roster takes time, and none of tonight’s reports say how many patients each doctor is currently accepting. Thompson Medical Centre’s website, thompsonmedical.ca, says it is accepting new patients, and its online application asks people to pick a location, with St. Thomas as one of the choices. Its St. Thomas office can be reached at 519-601-8621, option 3. For a city that has spent the past year publicly wrestling with its doctor shortage, three more family doctors already in the city full-time, with a fourth on the way in October, gives residents something concrete: a place to call if they are still looking for a family doctor.
Sources: St. Thomas council agenda, September 21, 2026 (Reports CMO-60-26, CMO-68-26, CMO-69-26, CMO-70-26), St. Thomas council minutes, June 8, 2026 (Reports CMO-44-26 through CMO-47-26), LocVox: St. Thomas and Elgin Are Studying a City-Run Medical Clinic of Their Own
By Anthony Zruna · About the LocVox Newsroom
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