Changes to Alberta government RESIDE program will fail to woo rural doctors: NDP

Lisa Johnson - Edmonton Journal

NDP health critic David Shepherd.

A $6-million recruitment program that secured just one physician in rural Alberta is failing the long list of residents without a family doctor, charges the NDP Opposition.

First announced in late January, the Rural Education Supplement and Integrated Doctor Experience (RESIDE) program offered up to 20 new family physicians bonuses of up to $100,000 to work in rural communities, in exchange for a three-year work commitment.

While around 20 physicians applied, only one is set to enter a practice in Cold Lake in January.

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On Monday, Steve Buick, Health Minister Jason Copping’s press secretary, said in a statement to Postmedia the ministry is working with partners including Alberta Health Services (AHS) to recruit physicians, and seeing success in spite of the pandemic.

“Since Jan. 1, AHS has announced 20 new physicians in rural communities, in addition to 11 physicians who have committed to enter practice in Lethbridge,” Buick said.

Since most applicants didn’t meet the criteria for RESIDE, Copping has approved changes to the program, administered by the Rural Health Professions Action Plan (RhPAP).

Those include expanding the list of eligible communities beyond the initial 15, expanding the eligibility criteria to include family physicians who completed their residency in Canada within the last five years, and allowing doctors to serve in communities for a minimum of two years instead of three. Those applications are now open, and RhPAP said they’ll be continuous to allow for flexibility.

NDP health critic David Shepherd said Monday with the program failing to place any new doctors on the ground this year, many of the 15 communities originally eligible continue to face a staffing crisis.

Shepherd said he’s skeptical tweaks to the financial incentive program will address staffing issues long-term.

“You can adjust these parameters in the program. You can shorten timeframes, you can increase the dollars, but that ultimately is not what’s going to solve the problem,” he said, acknowledging that staffing is a challenge across the country, particularly following the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic.

“What no one in the UCP can fix is that frontline health-care professionals know they cannot trust the UCP,” Shepherd said.

The government and the Alberta Medical Association haven’t had a master agreement since early 2020, after the UCP’s Bill 21 gave the province the authority to unilaterally cancel its deal with doctors.

Members are set to vote on a tentative new deal between Tuesday and Sept. 28.

In the latest 2022-23 budget, the UCP budgeted $90 million per year to attract new family physicians to practice in rural and remote communities, spending Buick said offered “the country’s most generous incentives for rural practice.”

Shepherd suggested the government could better work with post-secondary institutions to offer experience for doctors in rural communities, collaborate with municipalities and streamline the process for bringing international medical graduates to the province.

“Three years of hostility and threats and harassment is not going to be erased with a slightly different program,” he said.

Buick responded by calling the NDP’s comments “overblown and distorted by politics.”