Doctor gives up Nova Scotia licence due to red tape

A former Nova Scotia doctor is giving up her licence to practise medicine in the province and adding her voice to a growing chorus calling for streamlined regulations for doctors to work in multiple provinces.

Dr. Monika Dutt left Cape Breton earlier this year for Ontario in search of a working arrangement more in keeping with what she wanted. She currently works full-time there in public health and in February will begin workingone day a week in a family practice clinic.

But Dutt hadmaintained her medical licence in Nova Scotia (she also has one for Ontario), in part to make it easier to do locums here and because she wasn't sure if she might find her way back on a more permanent basis.

In the absence of settling that question, Dutt isn't renewing her Nova Scotia licence. She's decided paying the $1,950 fee to the College of Physicians and Surgeons just doesn't make sense.

"I have no trouble paying a licensing fee," she said in a phone interview from Cape Breton, where she is home on holiday. "[But] to me the licensing fee is the one that requires a very similar process in any province you practise in and so it doesn't make as much sense to me to pay that fee over and over in different places."

Dutt said she would instead consider doing locums in the Northwest Territories, where the licensingfee is much lower.

Calls for a national regulator

Doctors who travel to different provinces to provide locums fill in for another doctor so they can take a break pay a variety of fees each time they do so, including for letters of good standing from previous employers and to be licensed in the province in which they will do the locum. Dutt is hardlythe first doctor to call attention to a process many view as overly time-consuming and mired in red tape and unnecessary duplication.

Doctors in British Columbia have also talked about the problem, noting it acts as a barrier for getting medical care to rural communities that are often underserved and where doctors are desperate for a break.

In an interview this summer, the registrar of the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Nova Scotia said there is talk within the Federation of Medical Regulatory Authorities of Canada about ways to improve physician mobility and streamline the process. Dr. Gus Grant noted those talks were in very early stages, however.

'It just seems straightforward'

Dutt said she fully supports the need for a body that oversees patient safety, can receive complaints and monitor the activities of doctors, and she understands constitutional issues might prevent completely doing away with provincial regulators.

But she also thinks there should be a way to recognize doctors' credentials across the country without them having to apply and pay fees every time they want to cross a provincial border to work.

"I would hope there's a way to do that," said Dutt. "To me it just seems straightforward to figure out how to support physicians to be more mobile to be able to work in places where they're needed."