The President of the NLMA says the provincial government has created an uneven playing field by attaching incentives to physicians willing to sign on to family care teams.
Dr. Steven Major says as a result, the government has created a two-tier system while trying to recruit physicians for family care clinics.
“That negatively affects the ability to recruit family physicians in the community because you’ve got now a tow-tiered system where someone’s going to get paid more by entering into a family health team, and if I retire tomorrow, I’m not going to be able to offer that bonus to a physician to take over my practice.” That’s not helping the situation, says Major.
Major admits the issue is a complicated one, but he believes there are opportunities for the government to work better with the association to come up with “an even process” that ensures every resident has access to a family physician.
“And that’s not currently being addressed in my opinion.”
Barry Petten
The Opposition health critic says “alarming” new data from the Canadian Institute for Health Information shows that Newfoundland and Labrador led the country in the net loss of family physicians.
That means more physicians are leaving than those entering the system.
Barry Petten says while the provincial government has reported working hard to recruit physicians, the data shows that what they’re doing “simply is not working.”
Petten says the CIHI report also suggests a lackluster effort to recruit nurses to offset those leaving the system.
