Doctors Wanted

You would think that a devastating pandemic would be the moment when we remove the bureaucratic hurdles doctors trained outside of Canada face when they try to practise here. According to Jagdeesh Mann, around half of the roughly 1,000 doctors who immigrate to Canada every year eventually abandon their medical careers.

“In Canada,” writes Mann, “there are thousands of international medical graduates (or IMGs) who will never practise here. Worse still, some international graduates have had their immigration applications expedited precisely because, as doctors, they qualify for Canadian immigration streams designed for skilled workers—but now find their careers stalled. Often, the biggest barrier is securing the required residency because few spots are allocated to IMGs.

“Last spring, it seemed like these inveterate difficulties faced by IMGs would finally ease. The pandemic brought with it the fear that hospitals might become short staffed, and provincial governments realized they needed more hands on deck. Both BC and Ontario announced they would be issuing temporary licences for IMGs to practise under the supervision of other physicians.”

But, last July, writes Mann, “Reuters reported that Ontario had licensed only about two dozen IMGs in the past four months, a negligible sum in a province with 31,500 practising physicians. British Columbia had licensed zero.”

Click here to read “Even During a Pandemic, Immigrant Doctors Struggle to Find Work,” which was produced in collaboration with New Canadian Media.