Doctor shortage in Manitoba's oil capital shuts ER 3 days a week
The centre of Manitoba's oil industry is in the midst of a doctor shortage that has shut down Virden's emergency room from Tuesday mornings until Friday mornings.
Maxine Chacun, chair of the Virden and area doctor recruitment and retention committee, said the town has six doctors, but only four of them work in the ER. Virden needs five to keep the ER open around the clock, she said.
"It's a big concern," she said. "And we are concerned and so is the [Regional Health Authority]. And our doctors are very concerned. That's why they chose to work the weekends and keep the ER open rather than during the week."
Chacun said Virden lost two doctors recently to Carberry, which is closer to Winnipeg.
The mid-week closure of the ER means emergencies have to go to Brandon, 45 minutes away.
Chacun said even when there is a full complement, doctors in the town tend to get burned out pretty quickly.
"They do, yes," she said. "Even when we have five doctors doing ER, and we have one on vacation or medical leave or education, [or] courses, that's only four doctors. So they are working weekends plus one other night during the week. And they have several calls a night, I understand, from five o'clock on."
Barriers to foreign-trained docs 'frustrating'
Chacun said what she finds difficult are the barriers that doctors trained in other countries face when they come back to Manitoba, in particular a local man who wants to practice in Virden.
"The frustrating part is that we have a 'return of service' agreement with one of our local chaps," she said, adding the man's father is one of the local doctors.
"They came here ten plus years ago to the area and so he went to high school here and was part of our community and decided he wanted to be a doctor," she said. "He wasn't accepted into the medical school in Winnipeg and so he decided to go out of the country for his training and of course we know it's very difficult for someone who takes their medical training out of Canada to get a residency in Canada so now he is doing his residency in Ireland."
The regional health authority, Prairie Mountain Health, says the region is getting three new doctors next year, and while Chacun is optimistic Virden will get one of them, she points out the town is not the only community on the list of those who need new doctors.
She said in the meantime, Virden will keep looking and finding ways to manage the shortage which has been been acute since the spring.
"For most of the month of September, our ER was open 24/7 because we had a doctor who was from South Africa and who practiced here for many years," she said. "She came back and helped the staff that was here to have our ER open 24/7. But now we're back down to the four days a week," she said with a sigh.