A new report from Doctors Manitoba says the province gained more physicians over the past year, but is still struggling to retain them.
According to the 2025 Physicians in Manitoba report, Manitoba’s net increase of 164 doctors was record-breaking, but only 60 per cent of students and residents say they plan to work in Manitoba in future.
Doctors Manitoba president Dr. Nichelle Desilets told 680 CJOB’s The Start that the province needs to work on making improvements to retention.
Get weekly health news
“These students are training in our facilities, in our medical environments, and they’re talking to their colleagues across the country,” Desilets said.
“They know the system that they’re training in and the system that they might be practicing in, in the future.
“I think we really need to take that as a signal — why aren’t they staying? Why are they going elsewhere? What can we change to turn that number around?”
Despite the record-breaking increase in doctors, Manitoba remains behind a number of provinces. Another 246 more doctors are needed to meet the national average, but that’s down from a high of 445 just two years ago.
Desilets said it’s a step in the right direction.
“We are coming out of a fairly significant physician shortage that we’ve been in for quite a while,” she said.
“I think that recent strong recruitment efforts are to credit for having these improvements. I feel that we’re climbing out of it a bit faster than most of us anticipated.”
Those efforts, Desilets said, need to continue, as a number of doctors — 43 per cent, according to the report, say they’re considering reducing hours, retiring, or leaving Manitoba in the next three years.
The Canadian Institute for Health Information (CIHI) said in 2024, Manitoba saw a net loss of 8.3 physicians per 1,000 to other provinces.
“We know that we train more doctors than choose to stay here,” Desilets said.
Comments