Doctors and Nurses Flee Canada

As part of downsizing acute care, thousands of nurses and administrators were fired in Alberta. The Unions insisted senior nurses not be released and as a result Canada lost several years of recent graduates in nursing. These young people would be working today in our system. Instead they have retrained or fled the country. Many of the senior nurses have since retired. Most of the administrators were quickly rehired to deal with the chaos that existed at that time in our health care system.
In medicine, particularly family medicine, there was a sense the government, in their re-organization, considered us superfluous. The Barer-Stoddard (neither were physicians) Report that came out in-the /80s stated there was an overabundance of physicians. The Alberta Medical Association Manpower Committee predicted dire shortages of physicians by the year 2000. Naturally, the physicians were ignored, they supposedly had a vested interest. The Fraser Institute Forum, 1999, “The Doctor Shortage, Part 1, states that decision has cost Canada $1,000,000.oo dollars a year.
During this time, Health Organizations in the U.S. published several studies that showed the cost effectiveness of family doctors. Unlike their Canadian counterparts, hospital administrators and H.M.O.s in the U.S. actively recruited Canadian family physicians. They used words such as dedicated, ethical, hard working, selfless, and patient orientated to describe Canadian family doctors. They paid university debts, moving costs, and many other perks. Being respected, wanted and valued in the American system was such a unique experience for Canadian family doctors, they moved to the U.S. by the hundreds. I believe last year was the first year in twenty years that we in Canada realized as many physicians returning to Canada from the U.S as leaving for the U.S. Is this because the U.S. Health Organizations have become more controlling and Canada is looking at alternate provisions for care, including outside of the Canada Health Act? Perhaps the solution to our health care provider shortage is to provide numerous options including a private system. Perhaps, instead of depleting providers in the public system, a parallel private system and variations thereof, will actually replenish it!