A long time veterinarian who sounded the alarm about a pending veterinarian shortage years ago says licencing restrictions are hampering recruitment efforts.
Maggie Brown-Bury was responding after Sunrise Animal Hospital, which has been in operation in Mount Pearl for close to 40 years, announced that it will be closing its doors next week due to a vet shortage.
While the business is hoping a solution can be found to allow it to reopen, Brown-Bury told VOCM Open Line with Brian Callahan veterinarian vacancies are hard to fill – especially when support staff are also in short supply.
She says many clinics would like to hire foreign-trained vets, but they require a fully-licenced veterinarian looking alongside them because of their licence structure.
Dr. Maggie Brown-Bury (via the Canadian Veterinary Medical Association)
“So, a situation like Sunrise where you’ve lost veterinarians, you can’t go down that path for recruitment because you don’t have the required mentorship to support that kind of new vet.”
Brown-Bury says the same is true of newly graduated vets, “who might not want to go to a practice where they’re not going to have mentorship. So then you’re trying to look for experienced veterinarians who might be okay working by themselves and are looking for a change, or looking to maybe move to Newfoundland, and unfortunately there’s not a lot of people out there who are necessarily looking for that kind of change.”
