Many rural Manitobans know all too well how hard it is to find a family doctor. In many rural communities, including those in the southeast, there simply are not enough doctors to ensure everyone has their own family physician.
In some areas of the province, the doctor shortage has caused municipal governments to take aggressive action to recruit doctors to their communities. This includes initiatives such as building clinics for physicians to practice in. In the fall of last year, a number of municipalities in western Manitoba teamed together to survey medical students to determine what it was that would attract them to a rural practice. They also hosted a number of medical students in an effort to entice them to practice in their community upon graduation.
The NDP Minister of Health has been telling Manitobans that there are thousands of doctors that have been trained or recruited to the province but she fails to mention that there are thousands who have also left the province in recent years. It’s a revolving door of physicians and it is getting harder and harder to find physicians who remain in one community for all, or a significant part, of their medical career.
In Manitoba today there are 18 rural communities who have Emergency Rooms closed as a result of the shortage of doctors. In our region, there is a growing frustration about the shortage of doctors and the wait times that causes in walk-in clinics and other parts of our medical system. It’s fine and good for the government to talk about the need to have preventative healthcare, but preventative healthcare starts with the ability to have a doctor.
A key part of the problem is that we lose nearly as many doctors as we gain every year and with population growth, it seems we are never getting ahead. The fact that so many doctors leave the province to practice elsewhere is indicative of a provincial healthcare system that isn’t meeting the practice needs of physicians. Repeatedly physicians tell us that the bureaucracy in the NDP medical system is frustrating them in their practice and many of them are displaying their dissatisfaction by leaving.
Recently, the NDP government said that they plan to ensure every Manitoban has a family doctor within 5 years. After being in government for 11 years, one has to wonder why this has only become a priority now? It seems likely that it’s simply political spin in advance of the October election and just another meaningless promise.
By now, after 11 years, the NDP government should know that the last thing Manitobans need is more political spin. What they need are more doctors and a medical system that encourages them to stay.
