saskatchewan’s “gateway to the north” has no more working child psychiatrists, sparking concerns about patient care in a region that already struggles to access timely mental health services.
prince albert — and the province’s north — lost its only two psychiatrists trained to treat children and youth in the past year after dr. mohammed hussain died of a heart attack in october at age 79. another psychiatrist announced he would retire this year.
“going back we had had adult psychiatrists and some of them would do children and youth as well, but we didn’t have anyone with that special designation now,” family physician dr. stan oleksinski said.
a shortage of psychiatrists in saskatchewan is nothing new. a 2020 globe and mail analysis found saskatchewan had only 9.3 psychiatrists per 100,000 people, the second-lowest among provinces. there are presently 13 openings for psychiatrists across the province, as posted to the saskdocs web page.
it’s especially hard to recruit psychiatrists trained to work with youth.
in 2018, there were only 16 such professionals in the entire province.
hussain was considered a rarity,
oleksinski said, because he actually returned to school at 69 years old to pursue more training in the field.