Nova Scotia added 187 doctors to health-care system last year

Meig Campbell · CBC News

· Posted: Apr 26, 2025 5:06 PM EDT | Last Updated: 13 minutes ago

Nova Scotia welcomed 187 caller doctors to the health-care strategy past year, which is astir doubly the nett summation from the twelvemonth before.

For the 2024 fiscal year, the state attracted 253 caller doctors, but that was offset by things similar retirements and departures.

"We are blessed and pleased with the numbers this year, but we're not done, and we volition not instrumentality our ft disconnected the gas," said Katrina Philopoulos, manager of recruitment for Nova Scotia Health.

In a statement, Premier Tim Houston praised the numbers.

"That goes to amusement the occurrence of our efforts to marque Nova Scotia an charismatic and welcoming workplace for doctors from astir the world," helium said.

Of the 253 caller doctors, 89 are family physicians and 164 are specialists.

Philopoulos said the 2 biggest sources of recruits were Dalhousie University aesculapian residents and internationally-trained doctors.

As well, a recruitment and retention programme has helped invited physicians to smaller areas of the province, including Truro, Digby and Antigonish.

"This enactment wouldn't beryllium palmy without the assemblage showing individuals and wrapping their arms astir physicians and their families to guarantee they tin acceptable down roots," said Philopoulos.

Need-a-doctor waiting list

As of April 1, the fig of radical connected the waiting database for a family doc oregon caregiver practitioner dropped to 93,700, down from 104,300 radical connected Feb. 15.

"Those gains person been truly affirmative and 1 of the reasons has been our quality to enlistee household medicine docs to the province," said Philopoulos.

As of March, the number of vacancies for family doctors and specialists were 104 and 108, respectively.