A medical school should open in Gatineau, Que., as a long-term solution to the region's shortage of medical professionals, says a group of local health lobbyists.

A Gatineau satellite campus of the McGill Faculty of Medicine would train doctors, pharmacists, therapists and nurse practitioners in French under a plan proposed at a news conference Tuesday by the Outaouais à l'urgence phase 2 coalition.

It would be similar to Quebec medical school satellite campuses found found in Trois-Rivières and Saguenay.

The group also wants to start college-level programs in partnership with local CEGEPs to train radiology, radio-oncology, nuclear medicine and medical laboratory technicians, as well as respiratory therapists.

The group hopes the graduates would stay in the region after they complete their training.

Coalition spokeswoman Marthe Robitaille said the first graduating class would include 24 future doctors.

"If you have three out of five that stay here, that's pretty good," she added.

McGill, University of Quebec interested in project

The group said it has already spoken about the idea to the University of Quebec in the Outaouais, McGill University and a group of medical professionals with the Gatineau health agency, and hopes all three will be partners in the project.

Emergency room physician Dr. Gilles Aubé, a member of the coalition, said the Gatineau health agency already has links to McGill through its postgraduate training program, which takes on six family medicine residents and residents in other specialties each year.

Some of the doctors involved with the program have had informal talks with officials at McGill.

"They told me there is a great interest for the project," he added.

He said he has also talked to a group of 20 local colleagues who said they would be keen to do some teaching.

"There is a real interest in the community, the community of doctors, to train new students," he said.

Health Minister Philippe Couillard has said that if the region were to support a project similar to the one the group proposes, he would likely support it.

Similar satellite campuses were founded at:

• Trois Rivières in 2004 at the University of Quebec at Trois-Rivières, affiliated with the University of Montreal medical school.
• Saguenay in 2006 at the University of Québec at Chicoutimi, affiliated with the University of Sherbrooke medical school.

According to the coalition, based on the number of health professionals in Quebec and the population of Outaouais, the region is short 84 family doctors, 242 specialists, 152 pharmacists, 53 physiotherapists and 46 nutritionists.

The group said it plans to release other suggestions on how to solve the region's health care problems in the coming weeks.