Grand Manan Island Will Lose Another Local Doctor This Summer

At the July 2022 Village Council Meeting for Grand Manan, Mayor Bonnie Morse, who also manages council's health committee portfolio, said the island is set to lose another local doctor in the coming weeks. 

"We have a doctor who is leaving the island shortly, which means we will be down another physician as of this summer," said Morse. "We've reached out to Horizon, and we've got a meeting scheduled next week with their physician recruitment advisor and clinical academic head of family medicine just to talk about it and if there is anything as a municipality that we can do to help with recruitment efforts.

"Watching the news, we all know what an uphill battle it is to recruit healthcare of any kind to come to a rural and remote community. It makes it that much more challenging. We have this on our agenda, but just so people are aware, we are working on it. New Brunswick Health Minister Dorothy Shephard was on the island this winter and looked at doing a clinical approach to healthcare here versus a specific family doctor being based here. You wouldn't necessarily have one doctor but have several that work in a collaborative way to see islanders. We know people here have either issues getting an appointment with their doctor or their doctor has left the island or is leaving. This is an opportunity for us to pilot something new."

Mayor Morse motioned that council reach out to Minister Shephard again to take the next step in getting the clinical approach to pilot project off the ground on the island. The loss of a doctor comes at a time when Grand Manan is also set to lose the island's only bank.