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SOMBA K'E/YELLOWKNIFE - Canadian Medical Association president Dr. Robert Ouellet met with nine Yellowknife doctors, the NWT health minister, the NWT Medical Association president and the premier last week to discuss health issues in the North.

Barbara Drew, Canadian Medical Association CEO; Dr. Robert Ouellet, CMA president: Diane Ouellet, and Marlena Guzowski, NWT Medical Association executive director, were at the Explorer for discussions Feb. 5. - Anne Jones/NNSL photo

Ouellet said the biggest concern Yellowknife doctors brought up was the problem of retaining physicians in the NWT.

"We have a shortage of doctors in Canada," Ouellet said.

He said the Canadian Medical Association (CMA) was disappointed there was no mention of funding in the federal budget to recruit or maintain doctors.

"We're open to start another recruitment and retention committee," said Cindy Orlaw, NWT Medical Association president. "Our physicians are in crisis. There are only four in Inuvik."

But there was some good news in the federal budget for the CMA: funding for electronic medical records, even in the NWT.

"I was impressed by the quality of the hospital here," Ouellet said of his visit to Stanton Territorial Hospital. "I think the patients are receiving really good services here and the community should be proud of its doctors."

Ouellet said he would like to see a Canadian training facility to give physicians additional skills that are often required in the North and remote areas.

"One medical school should specialize in that," he said.

Ouellet suggested the training would be slightly different to include additional skills like conducting ultrasounds.

"I think it would be very interesting if there was one medical school that would specialize in giving extra training to those people so they could be more prepared when they come to areas like here. There's a need."

He said the place for such a facility could be a university in Western Canada.

"You don't just have to be a good physician," Orlaw said. "You need to be quite exceptional ... our scope of practice is much larger in the North."

She said it is important that the CMA is aware of the "special circumstances in the North, so they can speak and advocate for us nationally."

Marlena Guzowski, NWT Medical Association executive director, said Ouellet did a tour of European countries to compare the different health care systems, and discussed his trip with the premier.

She said the NWT representatives were "quite responsive to the ideas."

"People are afraid that we're going to go to privatization like it is in the U.S.," said Ouellet. "I think people are afraid about that. This is not the way to go because the American system costs a lot more than it does here and they don't have as good of a result as we have and there are 48 million Americans who are uninsured.

"We went to European countries because they have a universal system, which is the same thing we want to keep, but they don't have wait times," Ouellet said.

He said one of the main reasons Europe does not have wait time issues is that European countries have more doctors than Canada.

"The goal is to try to improve our system," Ouellet said. "We have seen that some countries like Belgium don't have any wait times at all."

Canada has block funding, which means that each hospital receives a set amount of money and to use it as it sees fit.

"Now in Europe, they have changed that and there is some funding that is still block funding, but most of the funding is done following the activity, meaning that the more activity you do, the more funding you receive," Ouellet said. "So the patient, instead of becoming an expense, becomes a revenue, which changes a lot."

Ouellet said European doctors are surprised when they find out that Canada still uses block funding.