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By Logan Lehmann

Increased incentives

‘Very beneficial for us’: Northern MLA gives green light to new physician incentive program

Apr 7, 2023 | 5:24 PM

The Saskatchewan Government has announced an increased incentive to its Rural Physician Incentive Program (RPIP) to help attract and retain more family physicians to rural and northern communities in the province.

Beginning on Apr. 1, it was increased to $200,000 over five years which is more than four times as much as what they were previously offering at just $47,000.

Athabaska MLA Jim Lemaigre shared his thoughts about the news as well as what this means for Northern Saskatchewan.

“I think this advanced program is going to be extremely beneficial to the north,” he said. “Talking to some of the doctors in Île-à-la-Crosse, they’ve been there for years. They went up there as intern doctors and then they were welcomed by the community, and they made it a home there. So, I think that this type of a program will attract doctors like that and bring doctors into the north. It will be very beneficial for us.”

On top of the higher incentives, the program length has been extended from four years to five. It was also announced that eligibility for the program is also expanding past new graduate students and now includes practicing physicians in rural and northern communities through the Saskatchewan International Physician Practice Assessment Program (SIPPA).

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However, the program has some people worried that other doctors already working in the north won’t be a part of the new incentives, but Lemaigre said this may not be true.

“We had an incentive program before already so what we said was the doctors that have joined the previous incentive program starting from April 1, 2018, they might even be eligible for this new incentive program,” he continued.

The Rural Physician Incentive Program was first launched in 2013 to incentivize recently graduated students to take up practice in rural and northern communities in Saskatchewan.

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logan.lehmann@pattisonmedia.com

Twitter: @lloganlehmann