P.E.I. is failing in its health recruitment efforts, say workers and former board chair

Karen Carrion trained for seven years to be a doctor in her home country of Mexico before she moved to Summerside, P.E.I. in 2018.

As a medical professional, Carrion said, she read about Canada's aging population and wanted the chance to do her part for health care in this country.

Almost six years later, Carrion now works as a licensed practical nurse not as a doctor at Summerside's Prince County Hospital.

She wants to apply to be an associate physician on the Island, but said she can't get a call back from Health P.E.I. about her application.

"Nobody has told me anything. They always send me to a different person. And that person doesn't know. And they give me another email and they don't know either. So it's kind of like ping-pong," Carrion said. "It's weird that nobody knows how this [is] all working."

'We have a large problem': Former Health P.E.I. board chair

9 months ago

Duration 3:03

Derek Key publicly criticized the province's recruitment efforts at a packed town hall on the state of health care in P.E.I. The former Health P.E.I. board chair talks about why he spoke out and why he believes the Prince County Hospital is at risk.

Both workers like Carrion as well as the former chair of Health P.E.I.'s board say the province is not doing enough to bring health professionals to the Island, despite the government's assertions that stories about lax recruitment efforts are false.

Carrion was one of many residents and health-care workers to put questions to P.E.I. health officials during Thursday night's town hall in Summerside that was aimed at addressing the recent reduction of services at the city's Prince County Hospital.

Summerside Mayor Dan Kutcher organized the session in light of Health P.E.I.'s decision to downgrade the hospital's intensive-care services due to a lack of staff.

During the public forum, both provincial Health Minister Mark McLane and interim Health P.E.I. CEO Corinne Rowswell assured the crowd of several hundred gathered inside Credit Union Place that efforts are being made to recruit and retain health professionals.

The health minister even said he personally followed up when he heard of people who want to come to work on P.E.I. and didn't get a call back from recruiters. McLane called those anecdotes "false."

That statement prompted Summerside lawyer Derek Key, the former board chair of Health P.E.I., to speak at the town hall.

Key said he's personally heard from numerous health workers who want to practice on the Island and who haven't been able to reach a recruiter. He went as far as to read an email from one such medical student to the town hall audience.

Friday, Key told CBC News he received yet another email from an aspiring health professional that morning.

"Those are extremely frustrating calls, and I know that the [health] minister is probably not hearing about those or the minister is perhaps being told those are false. The reality is, those people are out there and they want to come home and they want to practice here," he said.

"As we watch resources being hauled in from Sourisand from Montagueand from Alberton and now from the Prince County Hospitalto support the QEH, I feel the Prince County Hospital is probably threatened more than it's ever been threatened before."

Key "strongly believes" Health P.E.I. should be doing its own recruiting rather than the provincial government's Health Department, as is currently the case.

We love the Island ... we want to stay here and we want it to be better. Karen Carrion

For internationally trained health professionals like Carrion, the path to becoming licensed as a physician in P.E.I. can be even more arduous.

She hopes Health P.E.I. can review its recruitment rules for internationally trained health workers so she and others can one day practice in the profession they studied for.

"If you look around, there are a lot of immigrants that have degrees that could easily be considered or even reviewed to see if [they] can do it," Carrion said. "We're already here and we don't need housing and we don't need [them] to pay for rent or a car. We love the Island and it's not just a vacation spot. We want to stay here and we want it to be better."

Key expects to keep getting those calls, emails and visits from Islanders who want to work in their home province.

He said the province's recruitment and retention efforts won't bear more health staff until the government allows Health P.E.I. to do its job.

"The government has to recognize that the Health Services Act establishes that Health P.E.I. is to provide health-care services in the province. Period. Full stop," Key said.

"If they're not capable of doing that, then the people responsible should be fired. But you have to give them the opportunity to do their job, you have to give them the tools to do their job and then you have to hold them accountable."

No one from the Department of Health was available Friday to talk to CBC News about recruitment efforts, or about communications with people interested in working in health care on the Island.