Work Continues to Retain Doctor in Leader

The Cypress Health Region is still working to try to keep one of the doctors in Leader in the community.

Dr. Amu-Darko had announced that he plans to resign next month, but Health Region CEO Beth Vachon says that they're hopeful he will stay: "The physician has expressed the fact that he likes the community, it's somewhere he might be interested in staying, he does have concerns about the contract that he's in right now with us."

Vachon adds the recruitment and retention of physicians and other health professionals remains one of their biggest challenges: "We are often one doctor or nurse away from closing down facilities because we can't keep the doors open with the existing staff that we have. We're particularly challenged with that in our rural facilities outside of Swift Current, we don't have the breadth of people that we need to be able to call in, like casual staff or pools of staff that we can draw on when our full-time staff need to be away from work.

Vachon adds they will be meeting this week to look at ways to retain Dr. Amu-Darko, and address any concerns he may have.