(CHAT News file photo)

By Brendan Miller

Medicine Hat residents are struggling to find a family doctor

Mar 22, 2023 | 4:50 PM

MEDICINE HAT, AB – The Alberta government plans to spend $158 million this year to increase the number of health-care professionals in an effort to bring more doctors into communities like Medicine Hat.

CHAT News spoke with residents outside The Hill Centre today who confirmed that it can be difficult to find a local family doctor here in southeastern Alberta.

“Well my doctor retired two years ago I think so it’s been a struggle since then so I’ve just been using walk-in,” said a woman leaving the walk-in clinic.

One man said about his roommate’s situation “It’s literally impossible for him to find a doctor so it’s been terrible for him.”

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“I work at the hospital so I’m asking people all the time, or even if you go to emergency and they’re like ‘we don’t know where to send your results to if you don’t have a family doctor,” said a woman entering the walk-in clinic.

Other Medicine Hat residents told CHAT News they have had to travel as far as Oyen and Brooks to see a doctor.

Medicine Hat’s two Alberta NDP candidates for the upcoming election spoke out about the ongoing health-care crisis in the province.

The party says if elected they plan on building more clinics in Alberta and Medicine Hat is a top priority.

Brooks-Medicine Hat candidate Gwendoline Dirk says she heard several concerns from members of her riding who are getting more desperate to find a family doctor.

Dirk says that currently there is only one doctor in Medicine Hat who is accepting new patients at the Mohawk Medical Arts Clinic.

“It’s become so uncomfortable for all health-care professionals to work in Alberta that we’ve lost so many doctors and other healthcare professionals to early retirement, to other provinces, to other countries and other professions for that matter,” she says.

“People are desperate and it’s clogging up the emergencies, EMS services overused. People are getting sicker and sicker because things are being missed,” adds Dirk.

Cypress-Medicine Hat candidate Cathy Hogg explains our region has lost many people to Lethbridge and other areas because they offer more work and more post-secondary opportunities.

She says the government should focus on local economic development to attract more professionals like doctors to our community.

“We definitely need to work on that to attract more people to our region and that includes doctors, I mean their wifes often professionals and need a place to work and their kids, they want them to have access to post-secondary and so we need to really amp those things up in Medicine Hat,” says Hogg.

Hogg says if elected the NDP will work with post-secondary institutions like Medicine Hat College to help them increase their capacity for students in the healthcare field.