Eight docs recruited to work in western Manitoba

Eight doctors from around the world have signed on to work in clinics across the Prairie Mountain Health region through a provincial program.

Six doctors have set up practice in Swan River, Neepawa, Roblin and Virden, while two physicians are scheduled to begin in Souris and Swan River in mid-September. All were recruited by the Medical Licensure Program for International Medical Graduates, which helps physicians gain Canadian citizenship or permanent residency in exchange for working in communities in desperate need of doctors.

The physicians are from Nigeria, Pakistan, Iran, the Philippines and Bangladesh. In exchange for assisting foreign-trained doctors to become fully licensed to practise in Manitoba, they’ve agreed to practise in those communities for at least four years.

While the program has been used since 2001 to recruit doctors to the underserved Westman area , the local health authority has ramped up efforts in the past two years to improve the chance that internationally trained doctors establish roots in rural Manitoba. The hope is that they’ll stay more than four years.

“We collaborate with the community to put on a site visit (that) includes bringing the physician and their family to the community,” Tamara Kemp-Boulet, a recruitment team co-ordinator with Prairie Mountain Health, said Friday.

“Depending on their family dynamics, we might look at schools and day cares. We assist with job searches for their spouses, if that’s applicable. We ask the family what they like to do recreationally and in their family life, and we try to co-ordinate that into our site visit as well.”

It goes as far as connecting doctors and their families with real estate agents and ensuring doctors are informed as early as possible about which community they are expected to work in, Kemp-Boulet said.

There are early signs the new push is working, she said, including the decision by some recruits to build a home or bring extended family members here.

“I would say historically, probably, the retention piece wasn’t as strong, but with us taking a different look at this, and partnering with the communities and giving the physicians that are in the program as much advance notice of where they’re going as we possibly can, I think we’re going to see things change,” she said.

In 2024, the program placed physicians in Deloraine, Grandview, Russell, Ste. Rose and Virden.

Kemp-Boulet said recruitment in the region remains “a challenge.”

A Doctors Manitoba analysis from August 2024 found that only 18 rural hospitals were reliably open 24-7. Twenty-five were open part time or had frequent gaps in coverage, and 25 were closed due to temporary or long-term suspensions of service.

Health Minister Uzoma Asagwara called retention and recruitment of medical staff a “top priority” in a press news Friday.

“I want to welcome and thank these new doctors for joining our incredible Manitoba workforce,” Asagwara said.

Seven doctors are being recruited for next year, and should they pass their training, they will begin practising in the region in fall 2026.

malak.abas@freepress.mb.ca