"Things are looking up, they're looking better every month."
Those heartening words were spoken by St. Joseph's executive director Greg Hoffort in response to a question regarding physician recruitment and retention in Estevan.
"Dr. Andre Grobler is coming back to Estevan. I'm sure his former clients will be happy to hear that. He is re-establishing a practice in the same clinic he was in before, only now the clinic belongs to the local health committee. He'll be setting up with them. We expect he'll be able to get underway near the end of February or early March."
Hoffort went on to say that in terms of Estevan doctor numbers, "we've moved from crisis to concern and we'll be moving upward. There is progress being made."
The hospital administrator said there are seven physicians currently working within the city with an eighth about to begin soon. Then, with Grobler's return, followed by another promising recruitment effort, it should result in one more physician making a commitment to the Energy City within a month or two ... "That seven could become 10 rather quickly," Hoffort said.
One of the physicians being recruited who is expressing a lot of genuine interest is already based in Canada, which could make the process of certification in Saskatchewan a whole lot easier and swifter.
"At least there are fewer hurdles to clear if they're already working in Canada," Hoffort added.
Doctors who are recruited from outside Canada face a rather perplexing and frustrating series of red tape before they can gain accreditation to practice here.
"Outside Canada there are many immigration and work visa issues, more red tape including all the provincial bureaucracy they have to wade through before they can get certified to work here. There is a good reason to scrutinize, that's obvious, but sometimes it gets pretty frustrating," Hoffort said.
At a recent Sun Country Health Region meeting, interim CEO Marga Cugnet said there were up to 10 physicians now expressing interest in setting up in Estevan, so it was hopeful that at least some of them would be able to clear all the barriers and begin working sometime in 2012.
Estevan Mayor Gary St. Onge said earlier in the week that a health care levy applied to local property taxes is being used to enhance offers to doctors to set up in the Energy City.
"Sometimes I just can't believe what it takes to get them here. Lining these people up becomes a real bureaucratic nightmare," the mayor said.
So while the physician population is at about 50 per cent of what it should be to serve the city properly and effectively, there are some very positive signals in the form of the return of one doctor and the possibility of two more joining the local fraternity within the next two to three months which will ease the loads on the others considerably and pave the way for more agreeable working conditions and schedules.
Hoffort and St. Onge said they didn't want to get too overly excited about the possible arrival of more doctors because in the past there have been announcements of the imminent arrival of new doctors only to have some road block put in the way that causes them to have to back out from an agreement or prevents them from setting up a practice.
This time however, the two felt pretty confident that at least two of the three potential additions will become a reality very soon.
