Healthcare Spotlight: nora Penty, Family Doctor
Nora Penty
Nora Penty
The Nanaimo & District Hospital Foundation strongly believes that primary health care is the anchor of all health care. This belief has led to the creation of a grant program to support family doctors during the past three years and is proving to be one of the many successful pieces in bringing and keeping much needed family doctors to Nanaimo.
“When you have a strong primary care system, it lightens the pressure on the rest of the system”, says the CEO of the Foundation, Barney Ellis-Perry.
With the help of their donors, the Foundation is proudly supporting their role in building a stronger healthcare system.
In the collective goal to close the gap in the primary care system, the Foundation built out a program in partnership with the team at the Nanaimo Division of Family Practice to reduce barriers for potential family practitioners to call this region, and, the patients that live here, home.
Beccy Robson, Executive Director, emphasizes the Division of Family Practice thrives on partnerships. “A community prospers when it has good healthcare.” The Division’s aim is not only to support family docs already in Nanaimo, but to ensure doctors from out of region see Nanaimo as an attractive destination, and to retain them once they settle here.
While the new provincial Physician payment model represents an important step forward for primary care, family practices continue to operate in an environment of growing complexity and demand. Physicians are caring for larger, more medically complex patient panels, navigating practice sustainability, and planning for an unprecedented wave of upcoming retirements. Strategic investment now strengthens primary care capacity, support continuity of care, and help ensure that patients across our region have reliable access to a family doctor.
The Foundation’s program to financially support both new graduates and existing practices is one strategic investment that is helping to ensure Nanaimo remained competitive when attracting and retaining doctors in Central Vancouver Island.
“In the end it is all to help doctors so they can help patients. It’s a win-win scenario”.
The grant program has been running for three years and gaining momentum.
Some of the areas around primary care in Nanaimo which the Foundation has supported include relocation funding, licensing and registration fees, new equipment and even the opening of a two brand new clinics.
As of March 2026, 19 clinics and 16 individual physicians have been supported with grants and bursaries, connecting 13,000+ patients to primary care providers.
Dr. Nora Penty, one of the family doctors who benefitted from the grants, says by the time she finished her residency she was “running on fumes”, living off personal lines of credit.
Dr. Penty realized early on in her studies that family practice is where she wanted to be. “I was drawn to everything, from orthopedics to mental health studies to gynecology, which helped me choose my career path.” She also felt very at home with family physicians she worked with and shadowed during her rotations.
She learned about the Foundation grants through an email from the Nanaimo Division of Family Practice.
Beccy Robson describes Dr. Penty as a ‘superstar’. To qualify for the funding she received, she completed 600 hours of locum support work and then accepted a position at a clinic in Nanaimo to take on a panel of patients.
“The funding was the helping hand I needed to make setting up my practice in Nanaimo possible!” Dr. Penty says. “I used it for exam fees and living expenses while doing locums around town.” Nanaimo was “not on her Bingo card” of places to come to at first, but she knew the residency program here is very good. “Being in a smaller market, I got to see, do and experience more.”
Now years later calling Nanaimo and the residents she treats home; Nora happily shares how much she loves it here and is very sure she made the right choice to stay in Nanaimo. “The physicians have a closer relationship than in big cities. It is very welcoming and personal.”
Since the grant program began in 2022, 15 family physicians have been recruited and 80% of UBC family medicine residents are choosing to stay in Nanaimo to practice.
