The minister responsible believes that the merger of the province’s four regional health authorities into one will help with recruitment of health care professionals.

Right now the health authorities are competing with each other in the recruitment of health care workers, some more successfully than others.

Minister Tom Osborne says part of the plan to merge the four regional authorities is streamlining procurement.

He says if a health care professional wants to locum or move from one area of the province to another, they actually have to train on different equipment.

The same is true of the transfer of information from a hospital in one regional health authority to one in another.

“The two hospitals cannot communicate electronically,” says Osborne “the file has to be printed off and sent in, or faxed.”