A national public policy think tank is warning that Nova Scotia has its work cut out if the province wants to solve its doctor shortage.
Nearly 62,000 Nova Scotians remain on the primary care wait list, and the Fraser Institute says increasing the province’s number of medical school seats to meet demand could be key.
Nadeem Esmail, the institute’s health policy director, said the number of physicians graduating in Nova Scotia remains well below what’s required.
“We also know waiting lists for medical treatment in Atlantic Canada, in Nova Scotia, are much longer than the national average,” he said.
“The problems are much more acute in many ways.”
According to data from the Association of Faculties of Medicine of Canada, Dalhousie University welcomed 147 first-year medical students in the 2024-25 school year out of 3,610 new students nationally.
Esmail added that there are too many students being turned away at medical schools in Canada, in general.
“We have far fewer physicians than other developed countries with their universal access health-care systems. We’re graduating barely half the rate of physicians that other nations are graduating,” he said.
The province has been making efforts to create more medical school seats, including room for 30 students at the new Cape Breton medical school.
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The Sydney campus, which is a partnership between Dalhousie Medical School and Cape Breton University, welcomed its first class of medical students last fall.
According to the province, the students will follow a “rural-care path” and commit to practice family medicine in rural Nova Scotia for five years after graduation.
“They’re six years from practice,” Esmail pointed out.
“When we look at the numbers and stats on how many are actually likely to form long-term practices, long-term, cradle-to-grave family practices in rural areas, it’s quite a depressing statistic.”
The researcher said the institute believes the number of available seats should be tied to market demand.
“The reality is we need to give students the freedom to choose for themselves if they want to become physicians or not,” he said.
Recruitment, retention
New data released by the province last week shows the number of Nova Scotians waiting for a family doctor has dropped. As of April 1, 61,947 people were in need of a doctor or nurse practitioner.
That’s a decline of about 1,200 people from the previous month.
Health Minister Michelle Thompson said recruitment has made a difference.
“Up to the end of December, 63 net new family care providers have come into the system. But also, there’s been a number of patients who’ve been stabilized because there has been other recruitment,” she said.
Premier Tim Houston told Global News efforts to bump up the province’s physician numbers is ongoing and that government is focused on growth.
“When you think about the PACE clinic, which is the path to credential foreign-trained doctors and foreign doctors — to credential them into Nova Scotia — that’s kind of a new addition to the system over the last year with the goal of more doctors,” he said.
Meanwhile, Doctors Nova Scotia’s president-elect said although additional medical school seats and international recruits help, it’s a race against time in reality, as aging doctors are set to retire.
“The current numbers that we will be graduating and the time it takes aren’t going to be at the same rate as the people that will be retiring. And particularly with the increased health care needs as we have an aging population,” said Dr. Amanda MacDonald Green.
She pointed out that 10 years down the road, her patients’ ages and health concerns will be “more complex and time consuming.”
“We need to figure out what is going to give the people that are here longevity in this career — a career that faces high burnout rates and attrition,” she said.
Not only seats, but grants and forgivable loans (practice here for 10 years, and student loan forgiven) would make the 6 year without income more enticing. As it is, one faces no income for 6 years, then a massive student loan. That is a big deterrent.