People who need psychiatric services in Prince Edward Island are waiting months because of a shortage of doctors with that specialization.
Dr. Javier Salabarria, the provincial medical director for mental health and addictions with Health P.E.I., says the province has more psychiatrists now than it did when he started more than six years ago.
But with a growing population, and plans for a new medical school based at UPEI, he acknowledges the need is only going to grow.
“We do have a wait list, and that wait list, depending on the triaging, can certainly be fairly long, unfortunately,” Salabarria told CBC News. “The more urgent ones [wait] somewhere in the range of a few months, and the less urgent ones can be fairly extensive, even six to nine months.”
