P.E.I. health minister admits doctor recruitment has been ‘underwhelming’

There was no ambiguity on the challenges faced in Prince Edward Island’s health-care system from the health minister Wednesday in the legislature.

Responding to Liberal MLA Gord McNeilly asking about Islanders waiting for access to primary care, Health Minister Cory Deagle said things need to be done differently, adding “we can’t just use the excuse that it’s bad everywhere” and called recruitment “underwhelming.”

“The idea that everyone is going to have their own practitioner … is just not realistic,” Deagle said. “We have to affiliate to the entity,” he added, meaning Islanders could be cared for by those on a team in a patient medical home.

“I think Health P.E.I. has made significant strides over the last eight months to do that … and we’re going to see good progress coming in the months ahead.”

Then-P.E.I. premier Dennis King in 2023 promised to eliminate the patient registry by April 2025. (Julien Lecacheur/Radio-Canada)

In 2023, then-premier Dennis King promised to eliminate the patient registry by April 2025 by having every Islander signed up for care with a doctor or nurse practitioner. However, more than 30,000 Islanders are still waiting.

An email from the province to CBC News states that so far in 2026, 24 additional physicians have been recruited, 18 of whom are specialists and six family doctors.

‘One of the worst’ for hip, knee waits

Answering questions Wednesday from Progressive Conservative Summerside-Wilmot MLA Tyler DesRoches about hip and knee replacement wait times, Deagle told question period “it’s not good,” and said the province is “actually one of the worst within Canada.”

According to the province’s numbers, a wait can be more than two years.

“I do think that we can get to a place where everyone either has a family physician or is affiliated to a patient medical home, which is the model we want to move towards, which is the UPEI patient medical home,” Deagle told CBC News outside of question period.

“I think we can make good progress in that. I think we’re doing that at UPEI. This is not something that’s being experimented on. It’s done in provinces across Canada … and it’s how we’re going to recruit physicians [and] nurse practitioners to P.E.I.”

Deagle said the number of people on the patient registry has decreased by about 5,000 and some doctors have been recruited. 

Default Caption: P.E.I. Health and Wellness Minister Cory Deagle was blunt about the challenges the province’s health-care system is facing when questioned Wednesday. (P.E.I. Legislative Assembly)

He is confident patients can be connected with medical homes and said the UPEI patient medical home is not necessarily a new concept, though it is to the province, and changing a system doesn’t necessarily come easily.

“What we’ve done over the summer is work with the medical society, the nurses’ union, all the folks that are involved, to sit down with them and go over, how is this model going to work to affiliate to the building itself, to the patient medical home, not necessarily the prescriber,” he said.

“I think those consultations have been excellent. For once, they actually feel like we’re sitting down with them before we implement something to hear their feedback. And I think because of that and the trust that we’ve built up with these organizations, these groups, I think this can be successful at UPEI.”