Province looking to improve recruiting, retention of physicians, Sask. ministers tell doctors

The province has been dealing with a shortage of doctors and nurses. But now the Saskatchewan government says it's committing to recruiting and retaining more. 

On Friday morning, a doctor at the Saskatchewan Medical Association's 2022 spring assembly told politicians that many family physicians are switching to hospital contracts. 

Dr. Kirsty Sanderson of Moose Jaw wanted to know if the province has a plan to stop that from happening so frequently. 

"We actually need family physicians in full service practice, seeing enough patients per day with enough patient loads," Sanderson said. 

Health Minister Paul Merriman said the province is looking at how to solve the problem.

"The best person to probably work in family medicine is somebody that has a family here in Saskatchewan," he said.

"So we want to be able to make sure that we're getting those individuals through the process and then we're retaining them."

Merriman says 84 per cent of family residency graduates who trained in rural and regional sites in Saskatchewan have stayed in the province. But he admits the government needs to work to raise that number. 

"If there's something that we have to look at in the future as far as incentivizing family medicine, then we can certainly have that opportunity to be able to look at that."

The Saskatchewan Party government's 2022 budget promised a new independent agency that will work to recruit and retain health care workers.

The province also said it is increasing spending by $1.5 million to bring 150 health-care workers from the Philippines to Saskatchewan, with a goal of reaching 300 by 2023-24.

It also promised $12.5 million in spending to add 11 new intensive care unit beds, with an eventual goal of adding 31 beds by 2024-25.

As well, the government says it is specifically looking to recruit and retain physicians in rural Saskatchewan, and will spend $3.5 million to do so.

Need for psychiatrists, health-care support staff

Regina's Dr. Sanchit Bhasin questioned ministers at the assembly on Friday about the lack of psychiatrists in the province. 

"There are no active community psychiatrists accepting any new referrals for patients between [the ages of] 18 and 65 in the city of Regina. And this is up to date as of a week ago," Bhasin said.

Because of that, even patients who enter the hospital system have difficulty accessing outpatient care, he said.

"It's, to me, frustrating because we've had a residency program in psychiatry in Regina now for a number of years," said Bhasin. "I believe we've produced at least eight psychiatrists in that program, of which only two have been retained."

Part of the challenge is that many trainees have to do a return of service that's mandated in rural communities, he said.

"And when someone, for example, who's from Toronto is forced to work in a small community where they don't want to be, they tend to leave the province as soon as their return of service is done."

Everett Hindley, the minister for mental health and addictions, seniors and rural and remote health, said there are approximately 120 licensed psychiatrists in the province.

"We know that there's pressures when it comes to increased demand for mental health and addiction supports," he said.

The province is adding some more seats in this year's budget, but "that doesn't solve some of our immediate pressures when it comes to that area," said Hindley.

He said one of the goals of the new health-care recruitment agency will be "to look at some of these individualized challenges such as this, to say 'here's an area where perhaps we need to make some tweaks and re-imagine how we're doing this.'"

Meanwhile, Dr. Stephen Loden of Meadow Lake asked the ministers whether they plan on recruiting health-care support workers such as X-ray technologists and physiotherapists, in addition to physicians.

Both Merriman and Hindley said they were. 

Buying out contracts

Dr. Mohamed Moolla of Regina said that many trainee physicians buy out their contracts before they're completed, in order to leave Saskatchewan. He asked if the Ministry of Health would make sure the option to buy out is not immediate, but rather available only after three to five years of service. 

"We don't want to create a transient workforce in our medical community," Merriman replied. 

"We want to find that very fine balance of being able to recruit individuals without having them locked in for an extended period of time, because otherwise they might not look at Saskatchewan — they might look at other provinces.

"We want to balance that fine line of being competitive but not being overbearing on individuals."