Yukon Party says gov't should capitalize on 'chaos' to recruit U.S. health-care workers

The Yukon Party says the territorial government needs to move fast to poach health-care workers who might be thinking about leaving the United States.

It believes many doctors and nurses are ripe for the picking due to the volatility of the Trump administration.

After raising the issue last Thursday, the Yukon Party once again pressed the government during Monday's question period to commit to headhunting American physicians.

The party says there are steps the government can take to seize the moment. The first would include launching a marketing campaign aimed at getting American workers to relocate to the Yukon.

Yukon Party health critic Brad Cathers said the government should also allow board-certified doctors, surgeons and specialists to practise in the Yukon and speed up licensing of American-trained nurses.

"We do think there's a specific opportunity to target a marketing campaign to U.S.-trained doctors and other health professionals to reach them where they're living — in the United States — to paint the picture for them of what life could be like in the Yukon," Cathers said.

"And frankly, to take advantage of the chaos south of the border."

Cathers called the shortage of family doctors in the Yukon a "crisis," made worse by four physicians closing their practices and the departure of one surgeon within the last 18 months. He also said there were 153 locums who worked in the Yukon last year, but none decided to stay.

On that last point, those doctors already had jobs elsewhere, said Tracy-Anne McPhee, the territory's health minister. She said locums do not relocate to the Yukon after a single stint.

While the government is not specifically targeting American health-care workers, McPhee said it is working to recruit them from all over the world.

She pointed to the money the government has spent on recruitment and retention as a sign of how seriously the government takes the challenge of filling the shortage of these workers.

McPhee said in each of the last three years, an additional $2 million was allocated to "enhance" recruitment and retention. That would be in addition to other measures such as funding a recruiter position for the Yukon Medical Association.

"Recruiting physicians is one of our top priorities. Health care for Yukoners is absolutely a top priority. You can see that from the budget allocations of this year," she said.

However, Cathers said the Yukon's health-care system remains "not very welcoming," and called on the government to work with the Yukon Medical Association to reduce the administrative burden doctors have to deal with.

"I think it's fair to say that virtually every single Yukoner would say the government needs to be doing more to recruit and retain doctors," Cathers said.

The government released its Health Human Resources Strategy in 2023, a plan for tackling the shortage of health-care workers. Some of its initiatives aim to improve workplace culture, streamline the integration of new workers and to create more training opportunities in the Yukon.

McPhee said it came after consulting more than 600 frontline workers.

"We brought every decision-maker in health care we could find in the territory to the table ... to make sure that we could challenge ourselves to determine what the issues are and what are the solutions that we're going to bring forward," she said.

The government announced on Monday that it will soon begin negotiations with the Yukon Medical Association for a new memorandum of understanding. Key issues are expected to include improving access to services, any legislative changes that are needed as well as compensation.