Province to spend $2.8M to hire 9 new specialists

The provincial government has approved $2.8 million to hire nine new specialist doctors around the province.

The spots are spread between the Nova Scotia Health Authority and IWK Health Centre and reflect the areas of greatest need in the province, according to Dr. Mark Taylor, the interim vice-president of medicine for the health authority.

Recruitment is happening now for the following positions:

• pediatric respirologist, IWK.
• pediatric ophthalmologist, IWK.
• thoracic surgeon, central zone.
• anesthetist, central zone (to accommodate increase in thoracic surgeries).
• critical care specialist, central zone.
• critical care specialist, eastern zone.

The following positions have already been filled:

• internal medicine specialist, northern zone.
• pediatric immunologist, IWK.
• pediatric pain specialist, IWK.

Recruiting challenges vary

Taylor said the positions were selected based on applications from the various zones and the IWKwith the most important positions to be filled as soon as possible.

"How far down the list we go depends on the available amount of funding," he said.

Health Minister Randy Deloreysaid the goal of the new positions is to enhance services. Creating these new positions were part of the terms of the master agreement the province signed with Doctors Nova Scotia in 2016.

Delorey said recent recruiting-related announcements are a combination of acknowledging more work needs to be done and a function of ongoing planning.

"It's really us taking a comprehensive look at the needs of the system and responding to that."

Nova Scotia is hardly the only part of the country trying to attract doctors. Taylor said some of the positions would be fairly straightforward to fillwhile others will be a challenge because of demand.

"It's highly variable," he said, noting the ease the health authority hadrecently filling openings for new orthopedic surgeons.

"The more highly specialized the field, the harder it is to find people. For example, thoracic surgeon, we've had difficulty filling the position of thoracic surgeon, which we need."

A fabulous place to live

While Nova Scotia is challenged in recruiting because its pay scale is at the lower end of the national spectrum, Taylor said the health authority is working with the government on efforts to attract people, particularly those with ties to the area or perhaps looking for a certain work-life balance that's not possible in larger centres.

"People come to Nova Scotia for lots of things," he said.

"It's a fabulous place to live."

2 announcements in 2 weeks

He said having additional funding for recruiting always helps with those efforts.

"It would make us competitive versus other parts of the country that are in a position to make offers based on their financing available."

A spokesperson for the IWK said thefour new positions announced will help address needs in key specialty areas, improve access and reduce wait times for patients in need of specialty services that are only offered at the IWK.

"It is important to note that these new positions are in addition to the physician [complement] currently in place with the health centre," Nick Cox said in an email.

Tory MLA Alfie MacLeod said while the announcement Wednesday is positive, he wants to hear more from the government about what it's doing to attract family doctors and he'd like to see larger forms of action.

In particular, MacLeodwants a great effort on reducing barriers for doctors who trained internationally who want to come here to work.

"What you need to be doing is looking at the doctors that we already have here and saying, 'Look, do you know people that want to come here.' Look at all the Nova Scotians that have gone away [to medical school]."

The announcement Wednesday follows news last week that the government will begin funding 15 new seats at Dalhousie University's medical school for medical specialist residencies. Those spaces will focus on training doctors in a variety of communities around the province, many of them under serviced.

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