A family doctor born and raised in Newfoundland and Labrador wants to live and work in the province, but says the health department’s recruitment package isn’t enough to bring him home from the prairies. Dr. Travis Barron said it all comes down to pay because returning home to practice medicine would mean a big pay cut. “I would be paid, depending on how you calculate it, about 40 to 60 percent less in Newfoundland, unfortunately,” Barron told The St. CBC Radio’s John’s Morning Show. Barron is from Torbay but works as a GP in Brandon, Man. and immediately called Premier Andrew Furey’s office two weeks ago after hearing the premier’s personal appeal for doctors interested in working in the province to contact him directly. A shortage of doctors is wreaking havoc on the health care system, with a poll by the Newfoundland and Labrador Medical Association showing 125,000 people don’t have a family doctor. A dozen rural emergency rooms in the province have faced frequent closures since January, forcing people to travel — sometimes for hours — to seek urgent care. Meanwhile, Barron said within 48 hours of his call to the premier’s office he saw a number from the Newfoundland and Labrador government flashed on his ID. He said it was a representative from the prime minister’s office who told him a recruiter would be in touch. The province’s medical association estimates 125,000 people in Newfoundland and Labrador do not have a family doctor. (Mark Quinn/CBC) When the recruiter from the Department of Health called, Barron said they didn’t have the kind of specifics recruiters usually present, such as details about the positions being offered, pay and incentives. He said it was more like an inquiry, with the recruiter asking about the type of medicine he practices, why he wants to work in the province and the barriers keeping him away. Barron said the 10-minute unscheduled call was untimely — in the middle of his work day, when both patients and students demand his attention. Not satisfied with the recruiting effort, Barron contacted CBC News to detail his experience, then received a third call after the CBC requested an interview with Health Minister Tom Osborne about Barron’s experience — this time from the deputy deputy minister responsible for provincial health of the Ministry of Health Office of Recruitment and Retention of Professionals. Barron said the third call had details about positions and pay. However, he said there was no mention of incentives to recruit doctors interested in working in rural and remote areas of the province in any of the invitations. “Certainly a better job could have been done of making those motives known,” he said. But at the end of the day Barron said he’s not moving into his house and it’s all about dollars and cents. A sign at the William H. Newhook Health Center saying the emergency department is temporarily closed. (Jeremy Eaton/CBC) “I graduated with almost half a million dollars in debt after medical school, which is very, very, very scary, especially in the current interest rate environment,” Barron said, adding that paying off debt is his single biggest priority and another condition. young doctors also face. Barron said a job posting at Carbonear Hospital, similar to the one he’s doing now in Manitoba, could also discourage other doctors interested in working in the province because of his low salary. “It’s actually the lowest paying doctor’s job I’ve ever seen. And I reported it to the Department of Health,” he said, adding that the department informed him that the pay for that job had increased. But there’s something else keeping Barron at bay. His fiancee who is a physician’s assistant, similar to a nurse, would not be able to work because the job does not exist in the province.
Efforts must be improved: Minister of Health
Health Minister Tom Osborne said the province needs to do a better job of communicating incentives aimed at attracting doctors to the province and keeping them here.
“The province heard loud and clear that recruitment and retention efforts need to improve,” Osborne said.
He says they have hired new employees in the recruitment and retention office and added additional resources to health authorities.
An ambulance outside the emergency department outside the Bonavista Peninsula Health Center. (Ted Dillon/CBC)
Meanwhile, Osborne said the cost of living and housing in Newfoundland and Labrador “is significantly less than in Toronto” and is something he believes aspiring doctors should keep in mind.
Osborne says the province announced more pay for doctors working in rural emergency rooms and earlier this year added incentives for family doctors who start or join practices and have a salary guarantee program.
Still, Barron sees a bigger problem impacting health care across the country.
He says it’s hard for a province like Newfoundland and Labrador, with fewer than 550,000 taxpayers, to keep up with more populous provinces like Ontario, with a population of more than 14 million people.
“The real problem here, I think, is the provincial health care system model where it really puts the provinces at such an unequal disadvantage.”
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