‘Alberta has been a wonderful place to live, but right now, it’s a terrible place to work,’ said a Lethbridge doctor who is moving to B.C.
Dr. Jessica van der Sloot says she has mixed feelings about closing her Lethbridge practice and leaving Alberta.
In a Sept. 30 letter, the family physician said she’s enjoyed living in the southern Alberta city with her husband, Dr. Jarrett Stephenson, who’s also leaving the same clinic, and their dog. She added she has found her work to be fulfilling.
The Alberta government has made promises to improve the “desperate situation” in family medicine, but no “meaningful change” has occurred, said the Lethbridge doctor, citing a promised new compensation deal as an example of one of those unfulfilled promises.
“This is just one of the many frustrations and delays that have made it increasingly challenging to work in this system,” said van der Sloot in her letter.
Family physicians have repeatedly made their frustrations known to Alberta’s health minister but have been “fallen on deaf ears,” she said.
“Alberta has been a wonderful place to live, but right now, it’s a terrible place to work,” said van der Sloot, who, along with her husband, is moving her practice to British Columbia.
Due to a family doctor shortage in Lethbridge, van der Sloot informs her patients they will have to find a new doctor themselves because she and her clinic are unable to transfer them to a new family physician and no doctors at the Campbell Clinic South are accepting new patients.
Tim Neufeld, who manages the Campbell Clinic South, said the clinic has a full complement of physicians until the two physicians leave, but two other smaller clinics he also manages are half full. He estimated about 2,300 patients who are clients of the two doctors are now looking for a new family physician.
“Much of the burden is going to fall on the emergency rooms, and a lot of unchecked stuff is going to worsen,” he said.
The lack of a new funding model has had an impact on efforts to retain family physicians and recruit more, said Neufeld.
“If that (new deal) was to come through relatively quickly, they may even decide to stay,” he said of the two physicians leaving the clinic.
“I can’t say that it would make things much easier and we would have an abundance of physicians waiting for us, but it would definitely help solidify so those residents thinking of family practice, it might help them actually stay in family practice rather than going on to specialties.”
At the end of September, 313 registered physicians were in Lethbridge, an increase of 22 from a year earlier, according to the latest numbers from the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Alberta. But the college’s quarterly update does not break down the numbers by specialty, so it is unclear how many family physicians were practising in Lethbridge on Sept. 30.
‘What’s happening there is happening in all parts of Alberta’
Across Alberta, family physicians are leaving the province, says Dr. Shelley Duggan, president of the Alberta Medical Association. The two Lethbridge family physicians is one example of this, she said.
“That’s a whole bunch of Albertans now who have added to the over 800,000 who aren’t going to have a family physician,” she said.
The AMA is pressing the Alberta government to get the new compensation deal for family physicians done in an attempt to stabilize the province’s family medicine practices, she said. Then attention can turn to recruitment.
“Right now, Alberta is not competitive with its neighbouring provinces for family medicine remuneration,” said Duggan, who says the new deal with the province was finalized in April.
In a statement to Postmedia, LaGrange’s office said the Alberta government is “committed to finalizing a new physician primary care compensation model that is financially sustainable and supports both physicians and Albertans into the future.”
The new deal will be finalized “as soon as possible,” LaGrange’s office says.
“To support physicians while we continue this work, Alberta’s government has committed an additional $257 million to stabilize the delivery of primary care, with $157 million allocated for this year alone. This is in addition to our record investment in physician compensation in Budget 2024 of $6.7 billion.”
Province touts record number of physicians working, but AMA president says increase is insignificant
Alberta had 12,126 physicians registered as of Sept. 30, according to the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Alberta. The number of physicians has gone up by 370 provincewide in the past three months and 518 from a year ago.
More doctors are now registered in Alberta than ever before, said LaGrange in a Monday statement.
“The province has also seen its most significant third-quarter growth rate since before 2015,” she said. “This demonstrates that our efforts to attract and retain physicians are paying off, but we recognize there is more to be done.”
But Duggan says the increase in physicians is “pretty small” and does not keep up with Alberta’s population growth.
“It’s not going to do anything significant,” she said.