Medical Recruitment Scenario in Canada

According to a recent survey conducted by the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada, the College of Family Physicians of Canada and the Canadian Medical Association, there has been a crisis in the medical profession, a lack of suitable doctor jobs in Canada. The crisis is apparent as patient needs are not been adequately met. This crisis can be attributed to a number of issues.

 

The healthcare system clearly suffers from a lack of proper financing. In order to make it function appropriately, it is necessary that additional funds are put into the system. The second issue that needs immediate attention is definitely the lack of physicians. The onus should be on getting students to adopt medicine as a career option as there are not many medical graduates.

 

The physicians who are currently a part of the system have to deal with several other issues apart from their own work. This includes a lot of paperwork as well. There are not many doctors out there who have embraced technology to get rid of all the paperwork.

 

Sizable sections of the workforce are on the verge of retirement or have cut down on their professional engagements considerably. The numbers are not balanced as there are not many who can replace them.

 

All these issues need to be dealt with; however, their immediate resolution seems to be a distant possibility. The local areas need to address an immediate issue determining an appropriate level of service with regard to accessing doctors. There has been an attempt to providing recruitment incentive which may include subsidised housing facilities, signing bonuses and reimbursement of relocation costs.

 

Though these efforts are largely undertaken to increase recruitment in medical establishments, the efforts have been boosted by the services offered by medical recruitment agencies, also known as a Locum Support program. This program offers medical practitioners interested in filling up temporary medical practitioner jobs, an opportunity to work with some of the best medical establishments in the country. The funds that are poured into the industry are used up for the sake of identifying the locums, helping them with issues such as travel and accommodation and doing away with the obstacles that may come up in the path. These include any outstanding professional dues or additional licensing problems that the practitioner might face.

 

The program is aimed at providing continuous support in the form of filling up vacant medical positions. The program offers doctors with coverage during their practice days when they are unable to work for reasons such as illness, extended vacation, maternity leave and continuing medical education. The program is intended towards doing away with the crisis that has arisen out of a lack of a trained workforce required to tackle medical emergencies. This ensures that the doctors have a congenial work environment and also have sufficient time on their hands to manage other activities. They can afford to take it a bit easy and work as per their own convenience. The pay structure is also quite good and therefore they need not be concerned about the remuneration package.