Weeks of delays, mountains of paperwork, hundreds of dollars in fees, and still, Dr. Alexandra Dionisopoulos had to cut her intended stay in half, despite a dire need of more healthcare workers.
While emergency rooms and clinics across Vancouver Island face closures due to serious doctor shortages, one Canadian pediatrician says she was buried in paperwork when she applied for a BC license to come work at a rural hospital on the Island.
Dr. Alexandra Dionisopoulos also ended up having to shorten the amount of time she had intended to work at West Coast General Hospital in Port Alberni—down from four months to just one and a half—because of the way locum physician hours and funding are allotted.
“I don’t know if I’ll come back [to BC],” Dr. Dionisopoulos told Capital Daily, after a week of working here. “They just make it so hard for me to be here that it’s just not worth the hassle.”
