After practicing medicine for 47 years in Nova Scotia, Dr. Katie Felderhof strives to reduce her workload and take some rest.
But finding someone to take her place was a challenge.
For two years, she has been looking for a doctor to take on her role in Kanso, at the eastern end of the mainland. She was unlucky.
She does not want to leave unless a surrogate family doctor is hired in the rural community she has loved for the past 17 years.
“It would be like leaving your children behind, you took care of them,” Felderhof said. “You’ve taken care of all the generations and you know them very well, so you want to make sure they’re taken care of.”
She helps care for a community of about 800 people along with two other doctors at Canso Medical Center.
They work on one-week rotations. During the rotation, they are on call 24/7 as a doctor in the emergency department of the Eastern Memorial Hospital across the street.
“We get calls at night, not every night,” she said. “It’s hard work in the sense that I’m tired when I leave on the seventh day.”
The lack of doctors has been a problem in Nova Scotia for several years. As of April 1, there were 88,359 New Scots on the waiting list in the Family Practice Register.
“My job is to take care of the patient”
Felderhof is not ready to retire, but would like to take a break this summer to consider the next steps. This is something she has never done in her long career.
“I can’t even remember the last time I took a week off to tell you the truth. It’s hard to leave.”
She would like to see an improved strategy when it comes to planning the succession of doctors.
This has been a problem for years, she said, and there is currently no doctor working in the second week of May in Kanso’s family practice.
Although she wants to work in partnership with Nova Scotia Health on what the community needs, she believes the recruitment model needs to be considered.
“It’s not my job to do that,” she said. “My job is to take care of the patient, my training is to take care of people and their health problems.”
She said she informed Nova Scotia Health two years ago that she planned to leave.
The closest hospital to the Kanso fishing community is the Guysboro Memorial Hospital, about 50 km away. Hospital St. Martha in Antigonish is the nearest regional hospital, about 130 km away. (Gareth Hampshire / CBC)
Dr Chris Milburn said falling to two doctors in rotation created problems even for a short period of time. Milburn was recruited in the area by Felderhof about two years ago.
“There are patients in a week who have not been examined, prescriptions need to be recharged, they may have had pain or pain or something significant that needs to be examined,” he said.
It is not realistic for Milburn to work extra weeks. He has commitments to practice in Sydney.
He said one of his biggest concerns was the impact on emergency services in Kanso.
“If we get to two documents, we will inevitably have a few weeks without a doctor here,” Milburn said.
He said the nearest hospital was in Guysboro and could be 45 minutes away if the weather was bad.
Dr. Chris Milburn is concerned about the emergency response if a replacement for Felderhof cannot be found. (Steve Lawrence / CBC)
Some people in the area are working with local doctors to try to pay more attention to the problem.
“We are just doing what we can as defenders of our community and this area,” said Bill Macmillan, who wants to see healthcare in Nova Scotia make rural healthcare a higher priority.
“We are concerned about other communities like ours in the province of Nova Scotia, where they have the same needs. Fifty to 60 percent of people in Nova Scotia care for rural clinics or rural hospitals.
Determining where doctors are most needed
Dr Kevin Orel of the province’s new health recruitment office said he identified continuity planning as a key area that needed attention when taking office.
He said he was grateful for Felderhof’s commitment to her community. A strategy is currently being worked on, he said, to identify which communities need new doctors in the province.
He said efforts were being made on a number of fronts to try to recruit doctors, including a $ 125,000 incentive for doctors who have settled outside of Halifax.
“It simply came to our notice then [that] “Rural medicine is a challenge, and replacing those doctors who have worked so hard in these areas will be a plan that we must initiate ahead,” Orel said.
This plan may seem similar to the one he helped introduce when he was president of the Canadian Orthopedic Association. This plan had senior surgeons to mentor younger doctors for several years.
Dr. Kevin Eagle was shown in September 2021 at a meeting with health professionals. (Robert Short / CBC)
Orel also said he is in contact with Dalhousie University, seeking to find medical students who want to study in rural areas. Doctors are also wanted in Canada and other countries.
He believes that these strategies will take time, but in the short term, doctors who work as delicacies may also be considered for some places in need.
The Health Care Recruitment Office aims to hire 100 new doctors each year for the next 10 years.
Nova Scotia Health has announced a job as a family doctor in Kanso, but Orel said two doctors may be needed as many senior doctors care for a large number of patients.
Felderhof suggested mentoring younger doctors on the way to the broadcast is something she believes will work, but hopes new policies will be introduced soon.
“I said I thought the situation was urgent.
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