Saskatchewan NDP MLAs will tour rural areas this summer to talk to people about the doctor shortage.Health critic Judy Junor said the plan is to gather information, hold a symposium this fall and develop recommendations to take to the NDP’s policy review next spring. That will form the basis of the party’s health-care platform for the 2011 fall election.”If there’s things that we could suggest that would appear to be more immediate and logical to do, then perhaps we’ll be sharing that with the government,” she said.Junor said she believes more communities will step forward with their stories as they try to cope with losing their doctors.The first stop will be Leader, Sask., where the emergency room was recently closed after two doctors left.”There doesn’t seem to be a strategy that will give communities the assurance they need to attract doctors to come there and work and stay there and work,” she said.The NDP said there were 97 physician vacancies as of June 1, compared to 84 in 2007.But health minister Don McMorris said more doctors are working in Saskatchewan now than in 2007. The numbers vary because the government is keeping better track, he said.He said there are 164 more doctors working now – 92 specialists and 72 general practitioners.The government is promoting primary health-care teams that include nurse practitioners and group practices in which doctors from different communities co-operate so they can alternate taking calls.In the longer term, McMorris said offering more training seats and retaining Saskatchewan medical graduates are key.NDP leader Dwain Lingenfelter said that many communities have spent hundreds of thousands of dollars to recruit physicians who don’t stay. For example, two doctors recruited in Wakaw, Sask., are leaving after seven months.”The idea that local communities should be paying for health care out of their local tax dollars is not what local taxation should be used for,” he said.However, McMorris pointed out the practice has been going on for years, including under the NDP government.”For me to say to a community that you cannot raise money to attract … a physician, it’s pretty tough to do,” he said.
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