Manitoba seeks recruiter for 150 family physicians

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This article was published 17/04/2023 (876 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

After being called out in the house for not taking urgent action to recruit family doctors, the province revealed it has issued a request for proposal to enlist 150 of them.

Shared Health has invited prospective recruiters to submit proposals for physician recruitment services for up to 50 family doctors each in the northern region, rural Manitoba, and Winnipeg. The closing date is May 10.

Health Minister Audrey Gordon told the house about the RFP during question period Monday, after the Opposition demanded to know why the Progressive Conservative government hasn’t done more to train, recruit and retain such physicians.

NDP health critic Uzoma Asagwara called out the Tories for cutting and under-spending funding for the recruitment and retention of doctors since taking office in 2016, leading to a shortage of primary care physicians and the province in need of an additional 405 family doctors.

Gordon told members of the legislative assembly hiring a recruiter is one of many measures her government is taking to help attract and keep doctors in Manitoba. (The health minister’s press secretary later said she was not available to speak to reporters after question period.)

Doctors Manitoba president Dr. Candace Bradshaw said the advocacy group had first called for a provincial physician recruiter at the rural health summit last fall.

“Right now, other provinces are using recruitment sharks to aggressively approach physicians to showcase their highly competitive funding offers, supportive work models, and healthy work-life balances,” Bradshaw said in an email Monday.

“It’s positive to see Manitoba will have our own dedicated recruiter, but we’re still working with the province on the competitive funding, recruitment and retention incentives, and better work environments that will be key to attracting and keeping more doctors to Manitoba.”

Municipality of Killarney-Turtle Mountain Mayor Janice Smith said the local council was aware of the provincial government seeking a recruiter for family doctors, but, in the meantime, it plans to carry on with its own search.

“It has worked for us before,” Smith said.

The municipality issued an RFP earlier this year for a recruiter to find two physicians willing to work in the Westman community. It later hired the firm that had found Killarney two physicians in 2016.

Prairie Mountain Health Region is splitting the cost, Smith said.

The mayor said she’s concerned about how Manitoba will retain the doctors it recruits and already has without offering incentives now available in other provinces.

“It’s an issue,” said Smith.”What are you going to do to entice 150 doctors? Is there going to be a retention plan?”

She pointed to neighbouring Saskatchewan, which offers a $200,000 retention bonus over five years to physicians working in rural areas.

British Columbia has launched a major change to physician funding that will allow its doctors to spend more time with their patients. Other provinces have advanced team-based care, adding nurse practitioners and physician assistants to family doctor practices.

The province’s new effort to hire a recruiter for up to 150 family doctors isn’t enough, the NDP said.

“This is way too little, far too late,” Asagwara said after question period. “They’re announcing this now, months ahead of an election, when for the past seven years, they’ve taken no meaningful action.”

The province’s physician recruitment and retention fund budget dropped to $27.2 million in 2017 from $31.5 million in 2016, and has hovered around $25.6 million since, including in this year’s budget.

“Think of where we would be if, instead of cutting that fund since 2016-17, they had instead invested meaningfully in retaining the doctors we do have and recruiting more into our health-care system,” Asagwara said.

More than 150,000 Manitobans currently are without a family doctor, according to Statistics Canada data.

caol.sanders@freepress.mb.ca

Carol Sanders
Legislature reporter

Carol Sanders is a reporter at the Free Press legislature bureau. The former general assignment reporter and copy editor joined the paper in 1997. Read more about Carol.

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