Recruiting rural doctors remains a big challenge

It’s said that an apple a day keeps the doctor away. But what if you want to attract them?

For rural Manitobans, this particular question continues to frustrate government efforts to address the province’s ongoing doctor shortage, even in the face of two years of net physician increases.

A little more than a year ago, Doctors Manitoba reported what was — at the time — the biggest net increase in the number of physicians practising around the province. The net gain of 133 doctors between May 2023 and April 2024 had surpassed the previous high of 83 in 2014, meaning that as of October 2024, there were 219 doctors per 100,000 Manitobans.

While that increase still left Manitoba with a shortage of 346 doctors that would be required to meet the Canadian average, it was a step in the right direction. And by the end of 2024, that number rose to a total increase of 164 net new doctors.

Just yesterday, there was some more good news from Doctors Manitoba, as the organization now says that the number of physicians per 100,000 residents has climbed to 225 this year, moving it closer to the current national average of 241.

While that is a significant improvement, the annual “Physicians in Manitoba” report also notes that this province still needs an additional 246 doctors to meet the average. All the while, the province continues to lose doctors, too.

CBC reported yesterday that Manitoba saw a net loss of 8.3 physicians per 1,000 people to other provinces in 2024, reportedly “the second-worst performance of all provinces,” according to the Canadian Institute for Health Information.

And in a recent survey of Doctors Manitoba members and 1,318 fully licensed physicians, approximately 43 per cent of respondents were considering reducing their hours, retiring or leaving the province in the next three years, 58 per cent were experiencing distress in their jobs and 48 per cent were experiencing high rates of burnout.

With these numbers in mind, it’s difficult to see how these net new physician numbers are sustainable, without enough resources from the province being poured into new doctor recruitment.

It’s especially bleak news for rural Manitoba, which has already suffered over the last two decades from doctor and nursing staff shortages.

It must be said, however, that in Prairie Mountain Health, there have been a few glimpses of silver linings among the dark clouds. Back in August, PMH announced that it had recruited eight new international medical graduates, with three slated for Swan River, two for Roblin and one each for Neepawa, Souris and Virden.

The doctors were recruited through the provincial Medical Licensure Program for International Medical Graduates, which helps foreign-trained doctors to obtain their medical licence to be able to practise as a family doctor in Manitoba.

Another doctor, Muhammad Khan, moved to Canada from the United Kingdom and started seeing patients in Brandon at the start of this year.

And just this month, the provincial NDP managed to recruit 33 new physicians from the United States, taking advantage — like many other provinces — of the serious exodus of American doctors from Trump’s America.

One of those U.S. doctors — former Manitoban Dr. Arleigh Trainor — has found gainful employment as an emergency department physician at the Brandon Regional Health Centre.

As the Sun reported last week, Trainor has also received a letter of offer from the University of Manitoba’s Max Rady College of Medicine satellite program in Brandon, which provides training for medical students in their third and fourth year.

These efforts on behalf of both the province and the regional health authority administration are worthy of merit, because they are clearly showing some dividends.

And we await the 10 new doctor training seats being created at the Brandon Regional Health Centre that were announced by Premier Wab Kinew in July, which will be available in the fall of 2026, bringing the total in Brandon to 20 as part of a partnership with U of M.

But those seats won’t come too soon. According to the PMH physician opportunities page, the city of Brandon is still in need of anesthesiologists, more emergency room physicians, a pediatrician, a radiologist, a urologist, an interventional gastroenterologist, was well as a general practitioner in the province’s recently opened Brandon Minor Injury & Illness Clinic on Sixth Street.

And doctor positions remain unfilled in at least 15 different communities across the region, including Deloraine, Glenboro, Grandview, Hamiota, Killarney, Melita, Minnedosa, Neepawa, Roblin, Russell, Rossburn, Shoal Lake, Ste. Rose du Lac, Swan River and Virden. There’s also several locum (temporary) positions open at various locations across Prairie Mountain Health.

Obviously rural Manitoba has not been the main beneficiary of the province’s new doctor influx.

Rural doctor recruitment should remain a pressing concern for the governing NDP, even if the headlines offer some solidly good news.

Admittedly, that will remain an uphill battle.