Foreign doctors filling void in Sask.
Saskatchewan’s high proportion of foreign-trained doctors is the province’s way of addressing of a “chronic exodus” of medical school graduates.
“If we didn’t have our pipeline from South Africa and other countries, we would have even more severely underserved rural areas. So in that sense we should be grateful that they’re here,” health consultant Steven Lewis said.
Just over half of Saskatchewan’s doctors — about 53 per cent — were trained in another country, according to data from the Canadian Institute for Health Information.
It’s by far the highest proportion in the country — next are Newfoundland and Labrador and Manitoba at 36 per cent and 34 per cent respectively.
Quebec has the lowest proportion, at 10 per cent.
The offshoot of the high proportion of international doctors is that female patients may be frustrated trying to find a doctor of the same gender.
Seventy-three per cent of international doctors — 853 out of 1,168 — are men, which means Saskatchewan has the third-lowest percentage of women doctors in Canada, at about 35 per cent.
Often Saskatchewan grads do residencies elsewhere and do not return; they were part of a general trend of out-migration during lean years in the province, and it has always been difficult to get Canadian graduates to set up shop in rural Saskatchewan, Lewis said.
“As long as physicians are entitled to set up practice wherever they want, they can keep increasing the numbers in Saskatoon and Regina and they don’t have to go to the smaller centres, and we have left it to international graduates to fill those positions.”
It’s hard for a professional, whose spouse may also be a professional, to have the lifestyle and opportunities they seek in small communities, Lewis said. At the same time, doctors need a team of at least three people to avoid burning out, and small towns don’t have the population to support that number.
As a result, Saskatchewan essentially ends up subsidizing the medical workforce of other provinces, he said, adding the problems will continue until governments and organized medicine can agree to redistribute the physician population.
“The solution is, can you consolidate the medical workforce in somewhat larger communities and in larger groups so they have more support for each other, they’re able to have a greater work-life balance, spell each other off — and will that be acceptable to local communities?”