Record number of doctors recruited to Nova Scotia last year

Nova Scotia announced Wednesday that a record number of physicians were recruited and started working in the province between April 2021 and March of this year.

There were 163 physicians recruited and 68 departures last year, which results in a net gain of 95 physicians.

Of those recruited, 75 are family doctors and 88 are specialists. The province says they are working in communities across Nova Scotia.

The previous three years saw physician recruitment totals of 130, 128 and 127.

"Through the collective work of our recruitment teams and many partners, more doctors than ever chose Nova Scotia last year," said Nova Scotia Health and Wellness Minister Michelle Thompson, in a release Wednesday. "We are doing things differently and making innovative changes to improve healthcare for patients, doctors and all healthcare professionals."

Last September, the Houston Progressive Conservative government launched a campaign to attract and keep doctors and other health-care providers.

A recruitment campaign was also launched in March to bring more doctors from Nova Scotia back to their home province.

Other initiatives include, international recruitment missions, programs to retain graduates, and an increase in the budget for physician incentives by nearly $10 million.

Dr. Hadiza Babatolu, a family physician recruited from the United Kingdom who now practices in Middle Sackville, N.S., says the provinces is “an incredibly welcoming place.”

“Our entire family has been made to feel like we are part of the community. I often tell friends and colleagues about Nova Scotia's flexibility, culture of kindness and the amazing people we have met here. I am grateful for the support we have received from the medical, and larger, community."

Babatolu said the freedom to spend as much time with patients and manage her case load was another selling point.

Katrina Philopoulos, Nova Scotia Health’s director of physician recruitment, says the recruitment team had to be flexible over the last year, due to pandemic-related challenges.

"This period saw our most intense travel and gathering pressures related to COVID-19, and we had to pivot our focus to what we could accomplish in a virtual setting - site visits, resident events, clinic tours, online information and digital marketing all contributed to this total."

The province says they've also created a new health care workforce plan to address staffing shortages.

"That ultimately suggested that we need 100 new doctors per-year over the next ten years, and so this is very close,” said Dr. Kevin Orrell, the CEO of the Nova Scotia Office of Healthcare Professionals Recruitment.

Doctors Nova Scotia says recruitment is one aspect of addressing the shortages, but keeping doctors once they get to the province is just as important.

"Because we've also seen several recruits in the past few years, specifically from the U.K., who have either returned or are considering going back to the U.K.,” said Doctors Nova Scotia president Dr. Leisha Hawker. ”It's not just about recruitment, it's also about retention as well."

According to a Freedom of Information request by the Nova Scotia NDP, 136 internationally recruited doctors over the past three years have left the province, or their practice.

More than 90,000 Nova Scotians are currently on the wait list for a primary health-care provider. The province says recruitment efforts are continuing in order to fill nearly 150 physician vacancies.