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BRUCE BARTLETT
TELEGRAPH-JOURNAL

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SAINT JOHN - The number of emergency room doctors at the Saint John Regional Hospital is on the rise again.

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Matthew Sherwood/Telegraph-Journal

Dr. Mike Howlett speaks at a recent board meeting of the Horizon Health Network.

"In the last four weeks we signed three contracts," Dr. Michael Howlett, acting clinical chief of the emergency medicine department, told board members of Horizon Health Network (formerly Region B) at a recent meeting.

In September he reported numbers were up to 10 doctors after sinking to a low of eight earlier in the year in a department that is set up for 22 specialists.

"One fellow is starting in December and coming back to live in January," Howlett said. "His wife is a nurse as well, a critical care nurse and she is coming with him."

Another doctor, who graduated from UBC and then went overseas, is coming back to North America and has signed on with the Regional Hospital, Howlett said.

A female emergency physician from Australia has also signed a contract and will be coming as soon as her immigration papers are sorted out.

"Of course we want to return our staffing to appropriate levels for a tertiary care, speciality community hospital and we have managed to recruit very well, largely because the situation here is good for that," he said.

The expansion and redesign of the emergency department, currently underway, is one thing attracting doctors who know they will be working in a state of the art facility when it is completed. The other is the recently negotiated pay package for emergency physicians. And finally there is the medical school, scheduled to open in 2010, which is attracting doctors interested in teaching and research opportunities as well as working in the ER, he said.

"The opportunities that exist here are quite unique," Howlett said. "It is rare to see the number of things line up the way they have here in the past few months."

An earlier success for Howlett was Dr. Paul Atkinson, an emergency room doctor who teaches at Cambridge University in the U.K. In August he agreed to come to Saint John to work in the department and teach at the new medical school.

"He has been writing the curriculum for the ultrasound programs in the U.K.," Howlett said.

Shifts at the Emergency department have been easier to schedule in the last few months, and Howlett thanked local family doctors who have been volunteering. Earlier in the year there were fears that hours might have to be cut back in the emergency department because of the doctor shortage.