After dipping to perilously low levels in 2011, Estevan's inventory of doctors is slowly continuing to build.
The South East Community Health Committee, a group comprised of the City of Estevan and RMs of Coalfields, Estevan, Cambria, Browning, Benson and Cymri, announced Saturday that two more doctors are now practising in the city.
Dr. Andre Grobler has resumed his practice at the Estevan Medical Group office on the the city's west side while Dr. Kofi Amu-Darko is working out of the Primacy Medical Centre in the No Frills grocery store building. With their addition, Estevan now has nine doctors.
Greg Hoffort, executive director of St. Joseph's Hospital, said the addition of Grobler and Amur-Darko is great news for the community.
"It gives us a little breathing room now," he said. "The committee is committed to seeing this through and it is great to see some doctor numbers getting back up. This brings us to nine, of course, with the 10th and 11th, we think, just around the corner. We are hoping to have an announcement in the next week or two."
Grobler will become the first physician to practise in the Estevan Medical Group office which closed in October when Dr. Vino Padayachee closed his practice to take a position in Saskatoon. However, as part of its recruitment strategy, the committee took over management of the clinic to provide doctors with three options of where to practise along with the solo clinics located in the hospital and the primacy clinic. All doctors working in the medical group clinic will share in the management and expenditures of the clinic.
Grobler is a familiar face to Estevan residents after practising in the city for a number of years before leaving to practise in Prince Albert. Hoffort said when Grobler departed Estevan, it left a major void in the community and he is excited to see him return.
"It was a huge loss with the volume of patients that he saw and the absolute respect that his patients had for him it's an absolute relief that he is able to pick up a lot of the slack that was here."
Grobler said he enjoyed his previous experience in Estevan but it was not financially viable for him to remain in the city. However, he added the new structure under the committee made sense for him to return to the city.
"The health committee made it way more affordable for doctors to stay here," he said. "Every doctor in here will pay one-sixth of the overhead so any doctor in town can be part of this. Before the overhead was just killing us and I found many places where I could work with less responsibility and make more money. The setup that they have created here now hopefully will set it right.
"I love Estevan, I love the people. I have many, many great friends and patients here. I hope to serve them well again."
Grobler added that the growing roster of doctors in the city also made Estevan a more attractive location to return to.
"There was a point that we were down to about four family physicians. Everything comes down to the family doctors. If you have three or four here, you do 10 calls a month and it was just getting too much. And it's not only the call, everyone on call has to be seen afterwards and followed up. The less and less docs you get, the more and more work and people will just leave. So hopefully everything is changing around now with more doctors coming in."
Hoffort said in being around the hospital, he observed that the increase in doctors has made life somewhat easier for the doctors and also patients.
"It gives (the doctors) a better quality of life and a work-life balance that maybe they didn't have before," Hoffort said. "It will help with the waiting list for the patients and will help with how busy the emergency ward at the hospital got. To have clinics full of physicians is what is needed."
Hoffort said one of the committee's current focuses is finding an anesthetist to Estevan to replace Dr. Di Naidu.
