EDITOR:
Robert Lethbridge's opinion piece, “The immigration conundrum” opinion points out the “most common complaint among persons moving to, or, staying here is the lack of well-paid employment.”
What Islander hasn't met an immigrate physician that is working as a worker at a call centre, restaurant or as a cab driver. What a waste of talent and resources, since the P.E.I. government has spent money to attract professionals to P.E.I. We get them here and then waste the opportunity to utilize their talents.
Then we have on Dec. 5 in The Guardian, “More than 15,000 people without a family doctor on P.E.I., says health minister.” P.E.I. is heading for a crisis in health care. And the P.E.I. government is spending money to attract physicians to P.E.I. Spend some of the money to keep the talent we already attracted to P.E.I., here. The issue of shortages of physicians to train immigrate physicians in the field could be accommodated by using retired doctors as mentors.
I would suggest a customized, made in P.E.I. program that creates the solution to both retaining immigrates, especially physicians while solving the problem of a doctor shortage. This program would see two government departments and the Medical Society of P.E.I. work together to create the program.
Tracey Allen,
Charlottetown
