Erin Griffiths, who is the CEO of the Hay River Health and Social Services Authority, said the town of Hay River has successfully enlisted one to three doctors for the summer months, including an ER doctor, as well as up to two nurse practitioners.
At the town’s council meeting last night, Griffiths explained the local and territorial contract for physicians has recently increased, but under challenging conditions where physicians are hard to come by.
“Unfortunately, across Canada, there’s a vacancy of over 20, 000 physicians, but with that said, there’s also an opportunity from a lot of physicians coming up from the U.S. I understand that’s happening in the southern jurisdictions as well, we can jump onto that,” she added.
Griffiths suggests the town should explore creative ways to support the community and provide care services, but also emphasized that physicians are needed for the emergency department and critical care.
“I think we need to look around. I think we need to look at nurse practitioners. I think we look at a care team,” suggested Griffiths.
“I think putting all of our eggs in a basket of physicians, we’ve been doing that for many, many, many years, right? And I think we really need to get creative on other ways we can support community and provide care services. With that said, though, we need physicians obviously for the emergency department for that critical care piece,” added Griffiths.
Recruiting nurse practitioners also comes with its own unique set of challenges, but within the town’s existing health care model there is foundational support to increase the scope and practice of NPs, Griffiths explained.
“There’s also more rules for nurse practitioners. Right now, for us, because we have our own nurse practitioner local contracts, our contract for our long-term, there’s practitioners and staff, our staff NPs – we have the capability to increase that contract to attract more NPs,” said Griffiths.
