Edward Mantler likes a challenge, and recruiting physicians to rural Saskatchewan falls into that category.
Mantler last week was named chief executive officer of the new Saskatchewan Physician Recruitment Agency. The agency was announced in March.
He told reporters that finding and keeping doctors, particularly in rural areas, is a worldwide problem.
“The issue is challenging and complex and it will take us time to put together a plan that’s creative and robust to address these issues over the long term,” he said.
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Health minister Don McMorris said he hoped to see some results within six months to a year.
The government has already moved to increase medical training seats and residency positions at the University of Saskatchewan’s medical school.
“We haven’t had a good retention rate of our own students,” McMorris said.
Mantler agreed, saying all graduates should know they have the opportunity to practice in their own province.
“We will focus on trying to increase the
number of Canadian trained physicians who are choosing to set up practice in Saskatchewan and we will continue to work with regional health authorities and with communities who already have recruitment strategies and efforts underway,” he said.
Most of those communities focus on internationally trained medical graduates.
The agency will support that work, say McMorris and Mantler.
But NDP health critic Judy Junor said that seems to defeat the purpose of a central agency and does not level the playing field.
Communities will still spend their own tax money to
recruit, while tax dollars also go to the agency.
She added that communities in prosperous areas can offer better incentives to doctors than those where economic conditions aren’t as strong, which is also unfair.
Junor spent part of the summer travelling to communities that are experiencing doctor shortages.
“When they hear that there’s an agency run by the government that’s
going to do these things, they’ll be expecting that they’ll get a doctor out of this and I don’t see that’s going to happen,” she
said.
She added she is skeptical of how
Mantler will connect with rural Saskatchewan.
He was most recently the senior operating officer at University of Alberta Hospital and has been director of medical access and innovation in the Calgary Health Region.
The new agency will be located in Saskatoon near the College of Medicine and will operate with a $3.5-million budget this year.
