Despite shortages, interested doctors not hearing from the province, physician says

A new doctor says the province is still not responding quickly enough to physicians who want to work here, despite a rising number of people on the primary care waiting list.

Dr. Andrew MacLean, a medical resident and health policy analyst in Fredericton, said he hasn't seen any evidence the province has stepped up its recruitment game compared to the past few years.

"Are we on the phone calling new family doctors and saying, 'Do you want to work here?'" he told Information Morning Moncton.

"There's no urgency."

Last week the province announced a dramatic increase in the number of people on the waiting list. The number of people on the primary care provider wait list has grown from 40,000 to 63,000 since last fall.

Members of a task force working on a new health plan attributes the increase to more doctors retiring and more people moving to New Brunswick.

According to Michelle Guenard, spokesperson for the Department of Health, there are 181 doctor vacancies in New Brunswick as of May. General practitioner and emergency room vacancies account for 82 of that number, and the rest are specialist vacancies.

The number of vacancies is dramatically higher for registered nurses, figures shared by Guenard show. 

Province-wide, there are 783 registered nurse vacancies as of April 1. Horizon Health Network accounts for 559, and Vitalité Health Network has 224 vacancies.

'Disjointed' efforts

Health-care worker recruitment is not a new issue. Last spring, Health Minister Dorothy Shephard called the province's recruitment strategy "disjointed," and said new graduates and potential hires were not being approached in time.

MacLean said this has been happening for a long time. He said he knows of graduates who have contacted the province to find out how to start working here and received no response. 

MacLean said a few years ago, Nova Scotia and New Brunswick were in a similar situation with doctor shortages, but Nova Scotia's strategy of aggressively looking for local, national and international hires is paying off, despite being one of the lowest-paying provinces.

"Their recruiters these days are more persistent than a mosquito trying to get through a screen door, like they are everywhere," he said. 

• Doctor recruitment reaches record high, but N.S. still falling short of goal

Last year, Nova Scotia created a health-care recruitment office, dedicated solely to hiring new doctors.

Last week, that province said more than 160 physicians were recruited and started working across the province after the office was created. This is higher than the last three years when the number of new hires hovered around 128.

"They have a team of 12 people working full time on this and they're looking for more. And these are people with expertise in tourism and marketing and business," MacLean said.

Part of the problem is that it's not clear exactly who is responsible for recruitment, he said.

Guenard said the province has incentives for rural parts of the province, family physicians, specialties and emergency room physicians. She said there's an incentives budget of $5 million. 

"The incentive amount varies based on specialty and location, ranging from $20,000 to $100,000," she said.

It's not clear if New Brunswick has its own dedicated recruitment staff. On Monday, Guenard said there's going to be a workshop on recruitment this week, which will include people from around the medical field who will put a plan together. 

There are, however, physician recruiters within Horizon Health Network, said spokesperson Kris McDavid in an email.

"They typically work behind the scenes, but they would report to our VP Medical and our Chief of Staff," McDavid said.

MacLean said it doesn't matter who is doing the recruiting, as long as someone actually does it.

"I think most New Brunswickers would say they just don't care … who takes the lead on this, but it's got to be somebody."