Some doctors are coming and some are going, but Prince Edward Island is looking at a net gain of doctors in July.

Keeping up with leaving and retiring doctors is always a challenge, says Dr. Richard Wedge.
(CBC)

The province has 18 new doctors starting, but eight are scheduled to leave or retire.

"We have a net gain of about 10 physicians to Prince Edward Island," Dr. Richard Wedge, the province's director of medical programs, told CBC News Thursday.

"It's always a challenge. We're continuously recruiting. We're recruiting now for next summer for ones that we know are pending retirements."

Wedge said P.E.I. has more doctors than at any other time in history, but many of them want to work fewer hours than doctors did in the past. There are about 4,200 people on the province's official waiting list for doctors.

The official complement of doctors for P.E.I. is 209. If all goes as planned in July, there will be 201, a shortage of eight. That shortage is centred on rural areas. Souris, Montague, Alberton and O'Leary all need doctors this summer.

'We're starting to look very aggressively at a residency program.'— Health Minister Doug Currie

And while recruiting for Charlottetown and Summerside is going relatively well, the Physician Resource Planning Committee, which advises the Department of Health on where doctors are needed, is recommending nine new positions in the province's cities, in recognition of urban population growth.

Doug Currie has only been minister of health for about two weeks, but he's banking on a residency program to encourage medical students to establish practices on the Island.

"We're starting to look very aggressively at a residency program," Currie said.

"We are in the early planning stages right now, to identify the first steps."

While the situation appears to be improving, it is difficult to gauge. Officials can't keep track of all the planned comings and goings of doctors.