The province’s health minister says Newfoundland and Labrador has more family physicians than it’s ever had but the way they practice is changing.

Eastern Health has 54 more family physicians than it did eight years ago.

That may come as cold comfort to the residents of Holyrood who just lost a long-time family practice doctor leaving 1500 to 2000 patients looking for a new GP. The matter even came up for discussion at Holyrood town council.

Minister John Haggie told On Target with Linda Swain that part of the issue in replacing general practitioners is that the needs and expectations of doctors have changed.

He says the province is very competitive when it comes to compensation, but there are other factors at play. There are few professionals nowadays who have the desire to settle in and stay at the same job for decades.

Haggie says Labrador has very few doctor shortages for example because it attracts young physicians who are looking for adventure and a remote and rural setting. That changes however when they start having children when they want to be closer to amenities. Once a doctor’s family are grown, they may move again.

Minister Haggie says government and the Regional Health Authorities are continually working on doctor recruitment and retention.

While recruiting a GP requires a two-year lead time, recruiting specialists takes even longer.

Haggie says it requires time to fill the gap when a specialist is needed. The province is trying to address that.

Government has a bursary in place to fund an ophthalmologist for training in Ontario.

Ophthalmologists are not trained locally and require five years. If you add a retinal fellowship to that, it adds an extra year.