P.E.I.’s health minister quietly did away with doctor complements last fall, opening up less restrictive avenues for the province to recruit new physicians to practice here.
The complements essentially limited how many family doctor and specialist positions there could be in each region of the Island.
Politicians have defended the caps in the past as a way to try to make sure there were doctors to look after patients in rural districts, rather than having most newly-hired physicians opt to practice in the province’s larger urban centres.
But Health P.E.I. has said the complement was making it harder to hire new doctors. For instance, if the complement restricts a certain area to two cardiologists, a third one can’t be hired without a lengthy application process to raise the cap.
Health P.E.I.’s chief medical officer, Dr. Kathie McNally, said the complements were put into place decades ago when physicians operated much differently than they do now.
