Fredericton tries scholarships to entice new family doctors

Fredericton city council is taking a new approach to recruiting family doctors.

The city will give $10,000 to the New Brunswick Medical Education Foundation to create scholarships for two doctors in family medicine residencies who agree to work in Fredericton for at least a year. 

The grant money approved by council Monday night won't come directly from the city budget but from the province through the Regional Service Commission. The scholarships would start in the spring.

"We're taking recruitment very seriously and [the scholarships] are a role that the city sees," Mayor Kate Rogers said in an interview after the meeting.

"Clearly, there are a lot of challenges. Our region is the poorest-served as far as primary health-care physicians."

Documents prepared by city staff say 62,000 people in the Fredericton health zone are without a family doctor.

Only 68 per cent of people in the Fredericton region have family doctors, compared with 86 per cent in Saint John and 95 per cent in Miramichi. 

"It's a serious situation here in Fredericton … why can we not keep and attract doctors in our zone?" said Coun. Eric McGarrity, who supported the scholarships.

Rogers said she met last week with Health Minister John Dornan and regularly works with Horizon Health to address issues with health care in the city. 

"As the mayor of a city that sees so many of its residents without a primary care physician, I'm very concerned and we're trying to do all that we can," Rogers said. 

Health care is provincial jurisdiction

She also noted the city doesn't have jurisdiction over health care, and the municipal government is not "accountable" for the issues with it in Fredericton.

"However, our residents are without care, and that very much is a fixation for myself and council and city staff, so we're doing what we can," Rogers said. 

Asked why there's such a disparity between Fredericton and other New Brunswick cities in primary care coverage, Rogers directed the question to the province and health authorities. 

"That's not the work of the city to be recruiting specialists," she said. "It is the work of the regional health authority. … But we are very keen partners in promoting our city in recruitment and attracting people to our city.

"That's the role we play."

The shortage of family doctors in Fredericton is a problem that bleeds over into other areas, beyond health care, council heard.

Laurie Guthrie, an economic developer with the city, said the challenges the city faces recruiting doctors are beginning to become an economic development issue.

"In order for businesses to grow and retract and retain talent, they need to have their staff access doctors," Guthrie said.

Council's decision to try the scholarships comes after some doctors at the Dr. Everett Chalmers Regional Hospital spoke out on the recruitment issue following the retirement of Fredericton's only vascular surgeon.

Rogers said it "perplexes" her that Fredericton, which she said grew by 20,000 people in the last decade, still struggles with doctor recruitment. 

"That is a very critical question, and it's worthy of a response," she told reporters, again directing the question to the province and Horizon Health. 

As for why the two scholarships were just for a single year, Rogers said she hopes this will be enough to persuade  physicians to stay.

"They'll live here for a year, they'll see how wonderful it is, and they're not going to want to leave."