the Canadian Institute for Health Information<\/a> and the province in order to understand trends, concerns and opportunities related to Manitoba’s physician resources, Doctors Manitoba said in a news release.<\/p>\nIn spite of the progress on recruitment, this year’s research reinforces the need to focus on retaining the\u00a0doctors\u00a0we have, Desilets said.<\/p>\n
In\u00a02024, Manitoba saw a\u00a0net loss of\u00a08.3\u00a0physicians per\u00a01,000\u00a0people to other provinces \u2014 the second-worst performance of all provinces, according to data from CIHI.\u00a0<\/p>\n
WATCH | Manitoba still faces challenges retaining doctors, report says:![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/1761883157_400_default.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
Record physician recruitment but low performance on retention: Doctors Manitoba<\/p>\n
Investment in recruitment by the NDP government is responsible for a record number of doctors lured to the province last year, Doctors Manitoba says, but retaining those Manitoba has remains a struggle.<\/p>\n
Doctors Manitoba also did a survey of its members, and 1,318 fully licensed physicians (38 per cent) responded.<\/p>\n
Among those who responded:<\/p>\n
43 per cent were considering reducing their hours, retiring or leaving the province\u00a0in the next three\u00a0years.21 per cent were considering retiring or leaving Manitoba in the next three years.56 per cent were experiencing distress and 48 per cent were experiencing high rates of burnout.<\/p>\n
Over the past five years, Manitoba has lost an average of 155 doctors annually through departures or retirement, a rate of four to five per cent, Doctors Manitoba said, citing Manitoba College of Physicians and Surgeons reports.<\/p>\n
That’s a drastic difference from the percentage who said in the Doctors Manitoba survey that they were thinking about it over the next three years, the advocacy organization said.<\/p>\n
In addition, among the students and residents who responded to the survey, only 60 per cent planned to stay in Manitoba. The other 40 per cent planned to leave or were undecided.<\/p>\n
The number of Manitoba graduates starting practice in the province has declined from a record high of 87 in 2021 to 70 last year, the Doctors Manitoba report said.<\/p>\n
The recruitment success in the last few years has primarily been driven by out-of-province graduates moving to Manitoba, Doctors Manitoba said.<\/p>\n
‘Disillusioned and disappointed’<\/p>\n
Frustration over issues in\u00a0Manitoba’s health-care system, such as excessive administrative burden, siloed electronic record systems and a\u00a0lack of access to equipment and facilities, have been cited by doctors as key drivers of\u00a0burnout and distress, and the major reasons some plan to leave, Desilets said.<\/p>\n
Doctors\u00a0Manitoba is urging the province to improve the environments where\u00a0physicians\u00a0work and learn.<\/p>\n
That includes enhancing\u00a0consultation and engagement, said Desilets. <\/p>\n
Somed doctors “have become disillusioned and disappointed from working in an environment where they’re ultimately responsible for patient care …. but they’re working in a system where they can’t control factors that are impacting the patient’s care,” she said.<\/p>\n
That can include problems around medical transportation, access to diagnostic imaging or not being able to speed up the wait for surgery for patients, she said.<\/p>\n
“There’s a lot of frustration in some of those situations.”<\/p>\n
![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/1761883157_686_default.jpg\")
Health Minister Uzoma Asagwara said Thursday physician recruitment numbers show the province’s efforts are paying off. (Bryce Hoye\/CBC)<\/p>\n
Doctors Manitoba recommends streamlining computer systems between referring\u00a0physicians\u00a0and specialists, eliminating sick notes and other unnecessary administrative burdens, expanding team-based care, and investing in the facilities and equipment\u00a0physicians\u00a0need to care for patients.<\/p>\n
Health Minister Uzoma Asagwara acknowledged more work needs to be done on eliminating administrative barriers.<\/p>\n
The net addition of doctors to the system shows efforts through the NDP’s Health Care Recruitment and Retention Office is working, they said.<\/p>\n
“We’ve done the work of expanding medical residency training seats [in Winnipeg], and we’ve done that also in Brandon … so that rural students, rural learners have the opportunity to train in their communities, close to home, and be more likely to stay and serve in those communities,” said Asagwara.<\/p>\n
They said it could take years to restore and build on a health-care system that underwent through cuts under the former Progressive Conservative government.<\/p>\n
![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/1761883158_176_default.jpg\")
Flanked by Progressive Conservative MLA Derek Johnson (Interlake-Gimli), Progressive Conservative Leader Obby Khan, left, suggested Thursday that the retention of physicians could be impacted by quality of life issues the NDP government isn’t adequately addressing. (Bryce Hoye\/CBC)<\/p>\n
But Opposition leader Obby Khan said quality of life, affordability and public safety are considerations for those looking at living in Manitoba versus going elsewhere.<\/p>\n
“It’s clear the NDP are not doing a very good job of that, and people are leaving,” the PC leader said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Manitoba has attracted more doctors to the province over the past couple of years, but keeping them here…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":251516,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[49,48,84,392],"class_list":{"0":"post-251515","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-healthcare","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-health","11":"tag-healthcare"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/251515","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=251515"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/251515\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/251516"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=251515"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=251515"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=251515"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}