The Saskatchewan Medical Association is optimistic it can make headway on chronic issues plaguing the rural health-care system now that it has a receptive ear in government.
“For the longest time, the previous minister of health would tell us we don’t have a lack of doctors,” said SMA president George Miller.
“At least we got some people actually recognizing that 25 percent of us in this province don’t have a family doc and we could sure as hell use one.”
The association applauded the government’s initiatives aimed at improving the recruitment and retention of physicians but noted there is a long way to go to address the issue.
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“Eighteen percent of rural docs leave every year. How can you live with something like that? It’s just impossible to have some continuity here,” said Miller.
He said the government needs to make it more attractive to set up a practice in rural Saskatchewan by ensuring doctors get the proper pay.
If surgeons travels to rural Saskatchewan to perform a procedure, they should get paid for their travel time. A local doctor who gives an anesthetic for that surgery should also receive extra pay for that work.
The real answer is adding more doctors in rural communities so that a physician has some backup nearby. It is a lot more attractive to be on call every fifth weekend instead of every second or third weekend.
“We don’t need so much more money for our doctors. We need more doctors for our money,” said Miller.
The association would also like to see more nurse practitioners, physician assistants and improved computer access in rural areas for medical records and laboratory results.
“We’re getting the will from the government to be able to do some of this stuff,” said Miller.
Milo Fink, past president of the association, said the situation in rural Saskatchewan is approaching crisis status.
“I have been told by some of our colleagues in rural communities that many are near the breaking point and that without action now, we may soon be beyond the point of no return for many communities,” he said at the SMA Representative Assembly in Saskatoon May 8.
“What is really needed is fundamental change in how this is approached. In the past, it seems like the mindset was, ‘Well, we burned out that one. Get another and plug them in,’ which was part of a repeating cycle and recurring nightmare for rural communities.”
Government priority
To improve upon the lowest physician-to-patient ratio in Canada, the government needs to make it a priority to improve the working conditions of the doctors it has.
“Recruitment issues would go away if we took better care of the physicians who are already here. Together with government, we need to address the issues that are causing physicians to leave,” said Fink.
