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By meadowlakeNOW Staff

NEW DOCTORS

Meadow Lake Mayor pleased as two new doctors set up in city

Sep 21, 2023 | 5:49 PM

The mayor of Meadow Lake is excited that two new doctors have arrived in the community.

The provincial government announced Thursday that 16 physicians opened practices in rural Saskatchewan after going through the Saskatchewan International Physician Practice Assessment (SIPPA) program in June.

In a release, the government said there are 283 internationally trained family physicians who went through SIPPA in the province, with 77 per cent of those practicing in rural communities.

“We are very happy to welcome these new doctors and their families to Saskatchewan,” Tim McLeod, the province’s rural and remote health minister, said in arelease.

“As one of the many ways we’re working to recruit more doctors to our province, SIPPA continues to be a success. I congratulate this latest cohort on completing the program and wish them the best as they embark on this new chapter.”

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Of those 16, two doctors have set up in the Meadow Lake area, Ali Naghizadeh and Arkan Hashim Hassan Al-Ani.

The doctors’ arrival is welcome news to Mayor Merlin Seymour.

“To attract doctors here has been a challenge not just for Meadow Lake but all over the province,” he said. “With the SIIPA program, it’s just making it better to have doctors in our community rather than having people go out of town.”

Through the SIPPA program, candidates who are licensed doctors in other countries that have standards not recognized by Canada can apply to become licensed. It doesn’t apply to graduates who haven’t completed a residency.

The program, which was launched in 2011, requires doctors to sign a return-of-service contract through which they agree to work in the province for a minimum of three years after completing the SIPPA assessment.

The next step for the graduates includes supervision by local physicians.

Despite this news, the Saskatchewan NDP decried the announcement from the government saying there is still a shortage of doctors in the province.

“It’s disappointing to see the Sask. Party doing victory laps after hiring only 16 doctors when there are still over 2,000 unfilled healthcare positions on the government’s own websites, nearly 300 of which are for doctors,” said Opposition Health Critic Vicki Mowat. “I think if this government actually listened to people in healthcare and did the work, instead of tooting their own horn all the time, we wouldn’t have the worst hospital wait times in Canada.”

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