Fredericton touts efforts to attract doctors, despite lagging stats for primary care access

Aidan Cox · CBC News

· Posted: Jul 09, 2025 3:19 PM EDT | Last Updated: July 9

Having a speedy commute to work, entree to cycling trails and the quality to bask wintertime activities similar skiing were each factors Dr. Philipp Kolb considered erstwhile helium decided to determination to Fredericton aft graduating from aesculapian schoolhouse 3 years ago.

Now a locum doc who juggles infirmary work with household medicine and addictions care, Kolb is hoping to stock what helium sees arsenic the benefits of surviving successful Fredericton in a bid to assistance pull different young doctors similar him to determination there.

"It's a beauteous city. We person everything present that you request and thing that you don't, right? We person a ton of taste opportunities. We person markets, we person art, we person music, we person trails, we person nature."

Kolb spoke astatine an lawsuit the City of Fredericton hosted Wednesday to showcase its efforts to pull physicians to enactment successful the region.

Those efforts see 2 $5,000 scholarships it announced earlier this twelvemonth for aesculapian students who perpetrate to practicing successful Fredericton.

City unit played two videos produced successful the past year showing snippets of young doctors touting the manner Fredericton offers, intermixed with clips of them partaking successful activities similar cycling and paddling connected the St. John River successful betwixt visiting trade breweries.

However, it's unclear whether efforts by the city are yielding results, peculiarly arsenic different Canadian municipalities connection up much assertive incentives.

A New Brunswick Health Council survey besides suggests a diminution successful entree to superior attraction successful caller years.

Results of the survey taken past twelvemonth recovered that 63.5 per cent of radical surviving in Zone 3, which includes Fredericton and occidental New Brunswick communities going northbound to Grand Falls, reported having entree to a imperishable superior attraction provider.

That's beneath the provincial mean of 77.2 per cent, and good beneath the level successful 2022, erstwhile 80 per cent of respondents said they had entree to a imperishable superior attraction provider.

"Should cities beryllium taking connected this responsibility? Well, I mean, jurisdictionally it's not our responsibility, but ... I americium not 1 of those mayors who says it's not my job," said Fredericton Mayor Kate Rogers, speaking aft the event.

At the aforesaid time, Rogers was adamant that the work for fixing the region's health-care problems was connected Horizon Health Network and the provincial government, not the city.

"I would expect astatine the precise slightest that Fredericton beryllium astatine the provincial average," said Rogers.

"It is nonsensical to maine that we are a superior metropolis and that we, our residents, don't person astatine slightest the the aforesaid [access] arsenic others successful the province."

CBC News asked for follow-up remark from Rogers astir whether the metropolis was doing capable to vie with different municipalities looking to pull doctors.

"To day the request for fiscal incentives to enlistee doctors has not been expressed," Rogers said, successful an emailed statement.

Fredericton portion a challenge, says wellness minister

Speaking astatine the event, Health Minister John Dornan said the Fredericton portion has been a challenging country for recruitment.

He said the crushed is that the opportunities to signifier person been limited to private-practice clinics, which young doctors aren't funny in.

"What caller graduates privation ... and it's what we are offering, is collaborative practices wherever you tin enactment with different caller graduates, elder graduates, mediate vocation graduates, arsenic good arsenic different attraction providers, caregiver practitioners, pharmacists, physiotherapists," Dornan said.

"And truthful erstwhile you enactment successful that situation and person a authorities looking aft your overhead [costs], quality resources, snowfall plowing, past you're much inclined to travel in. You besides privation to spell into a signifier wherever there's idiosyncratic determination to screen for you if you spell connected a vacation oregon you get sick oregon if you retire."

Premier Susan Holt campaigned past twelvemonth connected a committedness of opening 30 of those collaborative attraction clinics crossed the state before 2028.

One of the archetypal to unfastened was successful Fredericton's northbound broadside successful April, which took connected 1,600 patients that antecedently didn't person a superior attraction provider.

Dornan said enactment is underway to found different specified session connected the city's southbound side, though details are inactive being worked out.

"There are a mates of groups of household doctors that are starting to speech with each different astir wherever they could go," helium said.

"And what's besides important is they're looking astatine providing teaching abstraction for residents, interns, different health-care providers, nurses, caregiver practitioners."