Doctors’ newspaper paints unattractive portrait of Nunavut

The Government of Nunavut tried to give itself a dose of positive media coverage recently as a way of luring more doctors to the territory, through a publication called The Medical Post.

The Toronto-based weekly is aimed at doctors and other health care professionals.

About 130 new jobs are planned for Nunavut’s two new regional health centres and Iqaluit’s replacement hospital, and many of those jobs are still waiting to be filled.

But a series of articles in the Jan. 18 issue of The Medical Post, by its national editor, Matt Borsellino, paints a generally unattractive picture of the Nunavut health care system.

It depicts a system filled with enormous shortcomings and frustrations — both for the handful of doctors who are brave enough to work in Nunavut and for the many Nunavummiut who need health care.

Borsellino’s forthright articles reveal the tough challenges facing health care officials in Nunavut. The articles also contain startling information that the GN is reluctant to share with Nunavut media, as well as opinions from disgruntled doctors.

Any doctor who dares practice in Nunavut finds a health care system that is seriously understaffed, with the worst physician-population ratio out of all Canadian provinces and territories, The Medical Post reports.

“We’re totally off the mark when it comes to the number of physicians we have,” Dr. Sandy MacDonald, Nunavut’s director of medical affairs, is quoted as saying. “I don’t expect miracles, but I want to see things improve.”

The Medical Post also looks at Nunavut’s “Closer to Home” health care policy, aimed at providing as many Nunavummiut as possible with health care within the territory.

It says the GN spends 28 cents of every health dollar on travel, about $48 million a year — four times more than what it spends on doctors’ salaries, even as it continues to spend health money on consultants and telehealth.

An Iqaluit surgeon interviewed for an article called “Cold Comfort” says she only sends three per cent of emergencies and 25 per cent of elective cases South — mainly because she’s not convinced the results are worth the trip.

“They leave with the mistaken belief they’re going to get better with more timely care,” but instead, she says they end up with more complications, relapses and poor follow-up back home.

This doctor criticizes the Nunavut-Ontario health service deal that sends patients from the Baffin region to Ottawa, rather than Montreal, as they did until 1999 when the patient service contract was transferred to Ontario.

“It used to be a privilege to get a pediatric residency here. Now they whine about being forced to come here. Ottawa regards this as a contract. We had smoother, easier relations with Montreal,” the doctor says of some Ottawa physicians.

She’s not convinced Nunavut is on the right track. She says too much health money is being spent on consultants and on telehealth, which she says has been “foisted” onto the region, and she accuses the GN of being more eager to listen to consultants than its own medical staff.

“Money, time and resources should be concentrated on getting patients services,” she says.

The Medical Post says that to recruit more doctors, Nunavut is exploring links with medical schools in Alberta, Manitoba and Ontario, so that medical residents can train in Nunavut.

“Nunavut wants you” is the title of another article in The Medical Post that says “the territory is looking to hire 30 GPs [general practitioners] as part of a plan to overhaul its health-care system,” doctors who are preferably young, adventurous and independent.

“Will you answer the call of the North?” the article’s sub-head asks.

The new health centre in Rankin Inlet will need two more doctors, the new health centre in Cambridge Bay’s will need three more doctors, and the Qikiqtani hospital in Iqaluit will need more specialists.

Nunavut’s doctors are well paid. They can expect to earn up to $300,000 for a 44-week year, but they’re not happy with the low quality of subsidized housing offered.