Medical experts are encouraging government incentives that aim to bring Canadian doctors south of the border back into the country to tackle a massive family doctors shortage amid the trade war.
On Monday, Liberal Leader Mark Carney unveiled his health-care plan and urged Canadian medical practitioners in the U.S. to return to Canada.
“To the Canadian health-care professionals practising in the U.S., let me say this. If you’ve been thinking about coming back to Canada, there’s never been a better time,” Carney said to reporters, during a press conference at the University of Prince Edward Island in Charlottetown.
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Canada currently faces a significant shortage of family doctors, with a deficit of 22,823 practitioners and only 1,300 annual graduates, according to a report by the Canadian Medical Association (CMA) released in January.
Amid tensions between the two countries after the U.S. President Donald Trump launched a trade war by imposing tariffs on Canadian goods, many Canadians have been sharing their discontent with the current American administration, and considering no longer travelling or residing in the country.
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In light of these tensions, Ontario Medical Association (OMA) President Dr. Dominik Nowak says that now might be the perfect opportunity to bring Canadian physicians back home, and urges for increased incentives.
“We have a historic opportunity right [now] to make sure that Canadians who are physicians in the States come back to practice in Canada, whatever the reason for that is that’s an opportunity for our health-care system,” he told Now Toronto.
According to him, nearly one in four Ontarians currently don’t have access to a family doctor. Meanwhile, there are fewer medical students in the province who are willing to go into family medicine.
“I’ve met with thousands of doctors and health-care leaders in Ontario as an example. And for instance, we need doctors to practice family medicine in Ontario, many medical students, many residents, are no longer seeing family practice as a viable career choice,” he said.
WHY IS THERE A SHORTAGE OF DOCTORS?
As explained by the OMA president, the system that funds and connects residents with doctors is very outdated, and family doctors don’t have access to a team of supporting doctors and nurses or administrators to help with the 19 hours a week of bureaucracy they need to fill, which causes many to feel overwhelmed and choose to follow a different path.
OMA has been working closely with the provincial government to update funding models, get doctors access to a support team and input accelerated pathways to encourage Canadian doctors and others abroad to come to Canada.
“We’ve been working with the government to advocate for accelerated pathways for doctors from the U.S. and other parts of the world to come to Canada, get credentialed, make sure that they have the right training and support, and get up and running and practicing and caring for patients,” Nowak said.
Meanwhile, CMA President Dr. Joss Reimer says that the issue with demand for doctors dates back to the 1990s, when medical schools across the country decreased class sizes for budget cuts.
“In the 1990s there was a belief that we had too many physicians. And so as a cost-cutting measure, they decreased class sizes for medical schools across the country. That means that people who would have been right now mid-career taking on the biggest patient level, we have less of those doctors,” she said.
In addition to that, the doctor explains that the Canadian aging population is now demanding more extended support, making the wait times for family doctors even higher.
“We also know that there’s a lot of baby boomers in Canada who now need more care and are demanding more of the health-care system, including of their doctors. So, the care is getting more complex and requiring more time from physicians, which also means they have less time available to other patients because of the increased complexity of the care that’s needed in Canada,” she added.
In addition, the COVID-19 health-care crisis also led many physicians to develop anxiety and burnout related to their work, and many ended up quitting family medicine for a less stressful career.
WHY ARE DOCTORS LEAVING CANADA?
Reimer says that the requirements to pursue medicine in Canada are very similar to those in the U.S. and many other countries, including having a four-year Bachelor’s degree, a four-year medical school degree, and a few years of residency—a process that takes around 10 years for a family doctor.
According to her, the real issue is that many ideal medical school candidates still aren’t able to get a spot in Canadian institutions, and end up choosing to move elsewhere for school.
“It’s quite common to hear about Canadians who go to Australia or Ireland by the promise to get their medical training. And then they have to try to get back into Canada and get a residency spot to become a specialist in whatever they want to specialize in, and it is an uphill battle if you’ve trained outside of Canada to get a residency spot, because we give priority to those students who trained in Canada,” she said.
The doctor believes that to encourage Canadian doctors to remain or come back to Canada, the country needs to increase the number of medical school and residency spots for doctors in training, and says that she is hopeful the next government will tackle this issue.
“There are many Canadians who are trained abroad who want to come back and do residency here, and we don’t have enough positions to accept all of them. And this is something that we’re hearing from all political parties, that they’re interested in increasing these spots. So, that’s encouraging to hear,” she added.
OMA’s Dr. Nowak also says that Canada needs to do a better job at encouraging more medical students to become family physicians.
“There are important reasons why doctors should want to work in Canada and Ontario. For example, we have world class doctors, world class hospitals,” he said.
“We know that there are hundreds of physicians who are in the U.S. who are interested, [and] are telling us every month that they’re interested in coming to Canada. Some of them will be Canadians living there. Some are Americans. So, we need to take advantage of this window of opportunity to bring people into Canada [who] want to join our workforce and help us decrease that 23,000 shortage that we have for Canadians. They don’t have to worry about the immigration process, and so that’s a benefit for them, and we welcome them to come back.”
