Burnout, recruitment and government collaboration: those three issues are the most pressing for the territory’s doctors, if the Yukon Medical Association’s (YMA’s) annual general meeting was any indication.

Reporters were invited to attend a portion of the event Friday afternoon, where physicians discussed the issues facing their profession and the state of the Yukon’s ability to provide health care in general.

Health care systems across the country have been reaching crisis levels as the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, lack of infrastructure and professional shortages have led to backlogs and limited access to medical services for many Canadians.

It’s likely not a surprise to most Yukoners, but Friday’s meeting confirmed the territory has not been immune to those problems.

The family doctor waitlist has more than 3,000 people on it, and no walk-in clinics exist in the territory.

As well, there’s a lack of doctors and nurses, and those who are here are often hard to keep as they’re forced to take on more and more work. 

So doctors have a lot of concerns as Yukon health care faces more and more pressures.

But some issues were more prominent than others on Friday, YMA president Dr. Ryan Warshawski told reporters after a presentation.

More collaboration and communication with the government, for instance.

“I’m hearing our physicians want the YMA to work collaboratively with the governments on a go-forward basis to ensure that we continue to provide high-quality care for the Yukon population.”

Health and Social Services Minister Tracy-Anne McPhee seemed to acknowledge that concern in her speech to the doctors assembled at the Kwanlin Dün Cultural Centre.

To make health care more efficient, her long-term goal is to create a health authority for the Yukon over the next five to 10 years.

In doing so, Health and Social Services would be more aligned with the YMA and the Yukon Hospital Corp. At present, she said, those three bodies can be out of sync, or unaware of the urgent needs facing each of them.

The Yukon is the only province or territory in Canada without a health authority.

Dr. Warshawski told reporters afterward he was pleased with what McPhee had to say. 

“I think it’s absolutely imperative that we are involved with the government in planning,” he said.

“How we provide resources, how we provide care to Yukoners going forward to make sure that we continue to provide a high level of care in the territory.”

McPhee did not take questions from reporters after her speech.

Recruitment and retention
essential as doctors burn out

If communication is important, even more important is what doctors want to communicate to the government: they’re stretched thin.

In another presentation Friday, Dr. Kathleen Ross, president-elect of the Canadian Medical Association (CMA), told doctors that recent stats showed increases in burnout among physicians across the country.

As the COVID-19 pandemic revealed pre-existing cracks in health care around Canada, forcing professionals to take on more work while backing up medical systems, Ross said the most recent CMA national study found 80 per cent of Canadian doctors said they no longer feel fulfilled by their work.

Close to 50 per cent said they wanted to step back and reduce their clinical hours.

“We cannot carry on this way indefinitely,” Dr. Ross told the room full of doctors. “The pressure from our past and our current circumstances aren’t going away anytime soon.”

The YMA reached an agreement with the Yukon government this year in which incentive packages are offered to doctors to take on more patients from the family doctor waitlist.

The incentives reduce financial barriers that come with an increased workload. 

Reporters asked Dr. Warshawski whether he thought doctors could be incentivized to take on more clients, given increasing burnout.

“That’s the million-dollar question,” he said. “People have to be in a mental place where they’re actually able to do the work.”

Dr. Warshawski said the YMA is currently surveying the Yukon’s doctors to understand how big a problem burnout is in the profession. 

With the doctors already working in the Yukon facing fatigue and client capacity, doctor recruitment and retention was also top of mind for doctors Friday.

Dr. Ross told reporters “medical professional shortages are a nationwide issue,” which obviously makes recruitment more difficult when each territory and province must compete with the others for doctors and nurses.

But Dr. Ross said she sees “multiple ways to improve recruitment.”

She said national licensing for physicians would allow doctors to move around the country and fill the biggest health care gaps in Canada.

Physicians are currently licensed by province or territory. She also wants to keep more national data on professional shortages, so the government and health care groups know where doctors are most needed at any given time.

Essentially, the response to professional shortages needs to be co-ordinated at a national level, she said.

Telemedicine, or virtual care, could also help alleviate problems caused by doctor shortages, Dr. Ross said. It helps reduce travel costs and improve access to primary care.

But she warned telemedicine is ideally only part of continuous primary care services that includes in-person consultations and appointments.

So recruitment remains a high priority for all health care systems, including Yukon’s.

In this territory, that problem isn’t getting any easier for rural communities.

“That is a profoundly challenging area, I won’t lie,” Dr. Warshawski told reporters.

“How do we encourage individuals to come and want to live in Watson Lake or want to move and raise a family for a long period of time in Haines Junction?”

He noted finding housing for potential doctors is a major problem, though the new three-year agreement between the YMA and the government offers a relocation package that helps reduce these barriers, he said.

But the housing shortage is somewhat inescapable in this territory, and Dr. Warshawski said challenges remain when convincing doctors to settle in small communities long-term.

“Is there a school for their children? Do they have the necessary resources that have the lifestyle that they want to have?” he asked rhetorically.

“Probably one of the greatest things that we could do is actually encourage individuals who have a connection to those communities in the first place, to join our medical community, get the training, get involved, and then hopefully, some of them will want to return and provide service to those communities.”

While access to health care and clinics remains inaccessible for many Yukoners, Dr. Warshawski said Whitehorse General Hospital’s emergency room has seen an increase in visits for health issues that don’t require emergency care.

He told reporters more children have been visiting emergency rooms too, due in large part to shortages on children’s medicine like baby aspirin. He said he doesn’t know when stocks will become more available in the territory.

But it wasn’t all bad news Friday. 

Dr. Warshawski told reporters the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic has lessened. He thanked Yukoners for getting vaccinated in high numbers – 86 per cent of people over the age of five have received at least two vaccinations in the territory – and encouraged people to get their boosters and flu shots this winter to decrease the burden on hospitals and clinics.

He said he’s optimistic the pandemic situation will remain manageable for health care workers.

He also ended Friday’s media scrum on a positive note.

“I recognize this is perhaps an unprecedented time,” he told reporters.

“I recognize wait times can be long. But at the same time, we are actually tremendously lucky to have the resources here that we do.

“Our emergency room wait times are substantially below national averages. And I truly think that many of the challenges, while serious, facing our system are ones that can be solved if the government and the YMA are able to work together collaboratively.”