Recruiters look to draw U.S. family doctors to Hamilton area to address shortage

Samantha Beattie · CBC News

· Posted: Apr 19, 2025 4:00 AM EDT | Last Updated: 22 minutes ago

Hamilton's health-care web is ramping up its hunt for family physicians from the United States, who whitethorn beryllium unhappy with President Donald Trump's government, and are up for moving to Canada.

Brad van den Heuvel, manager of doc recruitment with the Greater Hamilton Health Network (GHHN), said unit will be attending much household doc recruitment conferences successful the U.S. this twelvemonth than past and for the archetypal clip person begun advertizing connected American job boards. 

"The anticipation is they travel and enactment successful the agelong term," helium told CBC Hamilton this week. 

GHHN is an Ontario Health Team that organizes and delivers health-care services successful Hamilton, Haldimand County and Niagara Region's northwest. One of its roles is to enlistee household doctors successful Canada and internationally to capable the shortage in Hamilton and Haldimand. 

Hamilton needs astir 38 much household doctors to conscionable its colonisation needs, portion Haldimand needs 37 more, van der Heuvel said. 

GHHN has seen a "slight uptick" successful involvement from doctors southbound of the borderline since Trump won the statesmanlike predetermination past fall, van den Heuvel added.

Five American physicians reached retired straight to GHHN since November asking astir opportunities, helium said. Four were specialists, who GHHN connected to section hospitals, and 1 was a household doctor.  

Brain drain to encephalon gain

Now is the clip "to crook U.S. 'brain drain' into Canadian 'brain gain,'" Canadian Medical Association (CMA) president Dr. Joss Reimer said successful a connection past week. 

"Canada indispensable enactment rapidly to pull the American aesculapian and technological professionals who nary longer consciousness valued successful Trump's United States with its wide layoffs and the elimination of wellness programs and probe positions," she said.

In caller months, the Trump medication has overseen ample cuts and layoffs astatine national wellness agencies including the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the National Institutes of Health.

Reimer urged the Canadian authorities to marque it easier for foreign-trained wellness professionals to enactment successful Canada. 

"Canada has a unsocial accidental successful this infinitesimal to instrumentality vantage of this encephalon summation to go a technological and aesculapian powerhouse," Reimer said. 

More Canadians who went to aesculapian schoolhouse successful the U.S. could beryllium funny successful moving backmost than earlier Trump, oregon American doctors with Canadian spouses, said van den Heuvel. 

But it won't beryllium until GHHN attends American events later this twelvemonth that it volition cognize the existent fig of radical consenting to relocate, helium said.

One obstruction to attracting doctors from the U.S. is pay, van den Heuvel said. Physicians simply don't marque arsenic overmuch wealth successful Ontario's nationalist health-care strategy compared to the American private system.

Van den Heuvel is besides acrophobic that doctors recruited from the U.S. whitethorn determination backmost when the governmental climate changes. 

"Then we'll beryllium successful different occupation wherever you person each these patients losing a doc and past it's truly hard to capable each those vacancies," helium said. 

"Yes, it is simply a bully clip to absorption connected the recruitment of American physicians peculiarly due to the fact that their nonaccomplishment is our gain," said van den Heuvel. "But with constricted unit and constricted budget, we can't springiness up connected recruiting Canadian-trained physicians."