Foreign-trained doctors accuse department leads at Regina General Hospital of racism

A group of 11 internal medicine specialists working at the Regina General Hospital (RGH) have filed a complaint with the Saskatchewan Human Rights Commission alleging management gave sought-after teaching shifts exclusively to white doctors.

"I have no idea why a hospital would want to subject a group of physicians to feeling completely discriminated against," said Brooke Shekter, the lawyer representing the foreign-trained doctors.

The 11 doctors are all from Africa and East Asia. One of the original 11 doctors filing the complaint has since resigned from their job at the RGH, Shekter said.

Shekter, speaking on behalf of the remaining 10 doctors, said the trouble started when two senior doctors were promoted to lead positions at the hospital.

She said those two doctors fired the person responsible for scheduling doctors' shifts and took over the job themselves.

That's when, according to the human rights complaint and Shekter, the managers started giving the sought-after teaching shifts exclusively to white doctors.

Shekter said the teaching jobs are professionally rewarding and offer a stipend, increasing a doctor's income.

"When they complain about the treatment they receive … they are actually then subject to retribution and reprisal, because they're complaining about their department lead and their department lead is in control," Shekter said, adding the complaint includes allegations of coercion and abusive management tactics.

Shekter said the doctors filed a letter with the minister of health in May and also took concerns to the Saskatchewan Health Authority (SHA) in June. She said the doctors didn't receive a response from either at the time.

The SHA did not respond to interview requests.

The Saskatchewan Health Authority permitted this department lead to behave this way.- Brooke Shekter, lawyer

During question period Monday, Health Minister Everett Hindley said there was no place for racism in the health-care system and that his government took the allegations very seriously.

"I have had discussions with our senior leadership both at the SHA and with the Ministry of Health about this particular concern," Hindley told the Assembly.

He added that the SHA is launching a third-party investigation into the doctors' allegations.

Shekter said the SHA should not be involved in any investigation into the complaint.

"The leadership in the Saskatchewan Health Authority permitted this department lead to behave in this way." 

"So they're not an objective group of people."

Opposition NDP immigration critic Noor Burki said the allegations could hinder foreign-trained doctors from working in Saskatchewan.

"Imagine foreign health-care workers looking up work conditions in this province and finding this story. They can go anywhere. Will they want to come work here?