Newfoundland and Labrador Medical Association bristles at health minster's comments on number of docs in the province

The Newfoundland and Labrador Medical Association disagrees with how Health Minister John Haggie expressed himself on the number of doctors in the province. "From a numbers point of view, physicians and nurses, we actually are blessed in terms of numbers per capita," he said in the House of Assembly last week, according to CBC News. With close to 90,000 Newfoundlanders without a doctor, NLMA president Dr. Susan MacDonald said the province’s family physicians and specialists are uneasy for their patients. "When they have complex medical care needs that are not appropriate for a one-off in an emergency room or a walk-in clinic, we as physicians get very concerned about that," she told CBC News. The NMLA hired a consultant in 2019, who found a significant discrepancy between the number of licensed physicians in Newfoundland and the number of those actually practising. "Although our numbers are probably around 591 family physicians, he found that there are about 431 doing full-time family medicine. That's quite a significant difference," Dr. MacDonald said. Some work only part-time, while others focus on certain types of patients, such as Dr. MacDonald herself, who only works in palliative care. The consultant found at the time that 60 physicians should be added to the province’s roster immediately, with provisions made to add 10 per year for the next decade. Dr. MacDonald says a new approach is needed to tackle the shortage. "Right now we're focused [on] dealing with the fires, putting out the fires, dealing with the crisis, what's happening today that we can't handle," she said. "We have to have a human resources plan. We have to plan out where do we need physicians, how many do we need and where should they be working." Dr. MacDonald noted the province is now in the process of negotiating a new contract with doctors and highlighted that other provinces pay their physicians better. "We need to focus on our young colleagues that are coming out of medical school and residency here. We have the worst retention rate of any of the medical schools in Canada for keeping our own," she said. "Other provinces are really good at coming in and swooping up our homegrown talent. We need to work on developing and fostering those young doctors."

Newfoundland and Labrador Medical Association bristles at health minster's comments on number of docs in the province

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