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Originally Posted by opendoor
A few things:
1) That doesn't represent migration; it's simply the number of doctors who are practising in Alberta in different time periods, so that includes losses to retirement and whatnot.
2) That's not a particularly encouraging stat. Alberta had 254 more doctors at the end of 2022 vs. the end of 2021. But that only represents a 2.3% increase in a province that had its population increase by 3.7% in the same time period. So they'd need to increase that by 60% just to maintain the same ratio as before, never mind actually improve things.
3) If you look at the regional breakdown, the growth was almost entirely in the cities. The South Zone actually lost almost 4% of their doctors in the last year and the North Zone was more or less flat. That doesn't bode well for the future of medical access outside the cities.
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The above is true of other provinces as well. The number of doctors practicing in Canada, especially primary care doctors, isn’t keeping up with population growth. And rural regions across the country have been suffering from worsening doctor shortages for over a decade now. These are well-recognized national problems.
Firebot is on point with the ‘grass is always greener’ remark. People in B.C and Ontario are also complaining about conservative governments, underfunding of education, and the crisis in health care capacity. On top of that, most people in those provinces are priced out of home ownership. So where, exactly, do all the people intending to leave Alberta plan to go where they won’t face those issues?
People who claim Alberta is suffering a net outflow of skilled professionals due to the politics in this province still haven’t offered any evidence.