The Alberta government announced Monday it will spend $6 million over three years on a program it hopes will attract and retain family doctors in rural communities.
“The program will provide financial benefits to new family physicians who practise in rural Alberta,” Health Minister Jason Copping said. “In exchange, these new family physicians will provide three years of service in a designated rural community.”
Copping said in each of the next three years, 20 new family doctors will get $2 million to start practising in remote or rural areas of need.
The first 15 communities have been identified as:
- Fox Creek
- Grand Cache
- Fort Vermilion
- Wabasca
- High Level
- Rimbey
- Lloydminster
- Milk River
- Cold Lake
- Lac la Biche
- Rocky Mountain House
- Fort MacLeod
- Barhead
Copping said new communities will be identified every year as part of the Rural Education Supplement and Integrated Doctor Experience (RESIDE).
The RESIDE program also includes an undergrad tuition reimbursement of up to $60,000 and a remote community incentive of between $20,000 and $40,000. The amount will depend on the remoteness of the area, the health minister explained.
Applicants can apply online starting Feb. 1 and applications will be accepted until the end of March.
Applicants must be family medicine resident physicians completing their residency this year. They will be asked to choose their top 10 communities and will be matched based on “best fit” for available vacancies, Copping said.
They will start practising in their new community in the fall.
Both Copping and Dr. Gavin Parker, board chair of the Rural Health Professions Action Plan, said there is evidence that shows once a doctor lives in a community, they’re more likely to stay.
“It’s a gateway opportunity to get people into the community,” Parker said.
Parker has worked as a physician in rural Alberta for 15 years. He said RESIDE will play a “pivotal role in attracting physicians.”
“As a full service rural doctor, I can tell you the last few years have been tough,” he said, adding the pandemic definitely made things more challenging. “Getting back to the bargaining table and achieving a new contract is a high priority for the AMA and I think we’ve made good strides.”
Parker also said the billing codes for virtual and phone appointments were also “very appreciated,” especially when speaking with rural patients.
Copping was also asked about the province’s relationship with doctors.
“I am pleased… that we have engaged in interest-based bargaining with the AMA.
“I’m looking forward to the outcome and fully appreciate the need that we reach an agreement and provide some certainty for doctors.”
The Opposition NDP said RESIDE is “an unspoken admission that the rural doctor recruitment scheme announced by (former health minister) Tyler Shandro in April of 2020 has failed.”
NDP health critic David Shepherd said the UCP has spent two years “attacking and undermining Alberta doctors,” including with Bill 21, which the NDP is calling on the government to repeal.
“Incentive programs are not a new idea but every doctor will have to weigh these dollars against the knowledge that the UCP maintains legislation that allows them to rip up any doctor’s contract on a whim.”
Shepherd called RESIDE “small and unoriginal,” adding that it falls short in addressing the desperate need for doctors in rural Alberta.
“I am disappointed to learn that this proposal was developed without the support of the rural medicine section of the Alberta Medical Association. This is a discouraging sign from a government that claims to want to return to the negotiating table.”
In recent years, mayors and other municipal officials have been raising concerns about a growing shortage of family doctors in rural communities.
In Cochrane, the issue has only escalated in the last year, according to Mayor Jeff Genung.
In August 2021, he told Global News the town’s physician shortage is made worse by an abundance of retirees and the provincial changes to their wages.
“They were talking about changing or affecting doctor’s wages, so that may have forced some physicians to look elsewhere or relocate their practice,” Genung said.
“We’ve had a number of retirees, those current doctors are retiring and leaving vacancies. So that really is the perfect storm.”
In April 2020, the Rural Sustainability Group conducted a survey of more than 300 physicians across the province. The group said 44 Alberta communities would see changes due to recent government changes to the way physicians can bill for services.
“The responses we have received are quite alarming,” said Dr. Samantha Myhr, who practises in Pincher Creek.
“Forty-four communities will be impacted by July from our initial data — that’s physicians who have been forced to make changes or look ahead to make changes after the pandemic in order to protect their ability to see patients or look after their patients at all.”
Three communities — Sundre, Stettler and Lac La Biche — had already been informed some of their doctors will be withdrawing emergency and obstetric services in hospitals.