Provincial health officials are saying there are about 50 physician positions across the Lakeland and northern Alberta that currently need to be filled.
They are also acknowledging that, while there is movement on some of those positions, COVID-19 has made it more difficult to recruit people to the more rural areas that need them the most.
During a Lakeland Health Advisory Council meeting held virtually last Wednesday, Gail Hachey, the physician resource planner for Alberta Health Services, told a small group of online attendees from across the region that with travel restrictions and lockdowns, it’s been a challenge to recruit potential candidates, especially from areas outside the country.
“We have done lots of interviews with people in the UK, and different areas in different countries, but then it’s hard to bring them across here with COVID and the pandemic,” she said. “In the last few months, trying to find (some) to come over and cover a lot of the communities that are short because physicians have been exposed ... has been a real struggle.”
New hires
In recent weeks, however, provincial health officials have seen some highlights.
There have been positions filled, and residents in Bonnyville and Cold Lake may have noticed they have some new arrivals over the past few weeks, Hachey said, explaining that the Bonnyville region has a new obstetrician-gynecologist, Dr. Alina Kaznacheyeva, and a family medicine physician, Dr. Magda Du Toit, while Cold Lake has a new general surgeon, Dr. Ahmad Iftikhar, and a family medicine doctor and anesthesiologist, Dr. Kylan McAskile.
Despite the new hires, there are still dozens of under-served communities across much of rural northern Alberta. The physician resource planner says that another struggle with finding people to come to smaller communities is that because of COVID-19, they don’t have the ability to visit the area before to see if it’s a good fit for them and their families.
“We have done interviews, we have got some really good potential candidates, some that actually have signed, but on their part too they don’t get to see the community. They are going off of what we are telling them,” said Hachey. “Some communities are a bit more of a struggle to get positions filled.”
With the arrival of vaccines and some areas experiencing lower transmission rates of the deadly global virus, health officials are hoping it helps with their recruitment targets for the Northern areas.
Hachey said that while many areas are still facing challenges, some more new faces are expected in the Lakeland, with Elk Point expecting a new family medicine doctor in the near future, and St. Paul getting a general surgeon in February.
