Foreign-Trained Doctors are Untapped Resource in Pandemic Fight
Canada has thousands of qualified doctors and nurses who could help our strained health system now and in the future – but they’re stuck on the sidelines.
“I was a doctor back home.”
“I’m writing my exams to get my licence here.”
“It’s been three years since I practised last.”
“Seven years.”
“Ten.”
We’ve heard it countless times over the last few years — from close family friends to people we meet through our work or even on a taxi ride home — and every time we’re disappointed this is the experience of so many internationally trained physicians in our country.
The foreign credentialing issue has been a concern since well before the COVID-19 health crisis. It’s disheartening that even with a pandemic in full swing, Canada is still not leveraging one of its most valuable assets: the skills and experience of thousands of doctors.
Ontario alone has 13,000 physicians and 6,000 nurses who were trained outside of Canada. Many of them immigrated here with hopes of contributing their medical expertise to the health-care system. Unfortunately, their dreams have been hampered by systemic barriers such as exorbitant testing fees, challenges obtaining insurance and, in the case of physicians, a dismally low number of available residency spots.
Part of the rationale for such barriers is the critical importance of Canadian experience and the need for medical professionals to meet Canadian standards. Requirements for residency experience within Canada are coupled with a limited number of spots, which essentially forces many physicians to start over despite having potentially decades of experience under their belt. Even Canadian-trained medical students can struggle to find placements, but for internationally trained physicians it is even more difficult. In 2019, the Canadian Residency Matching Service reported that out of 1,758 international medical graduates, 1,360 were not matched with residency placements. And even if internationally trained physicians receive a spot, they are often underemployed and unsupported, leading to financial and emotional hardship.
As foreign experts languish in the system, the need for physicians continues to be great. Many institutions have noted Canada falls behind the majority of OECD nations when it comes to physicians per capita. According to the World Bank, Canada has only 2.6 doctors for every 1,000 residents. Italy, which until recently was the epicentre of the pandemic, has about 50 per cent more per capita.
Read the full article on the First Policy Response website