Community Efforts Bring Doctor Shortage To An End, Focus Now On Retention

Just over a year after Stettler faced one of its toughest health care challenges, the community is celebrating a dramatic turnaround in physician recruitment.

In the spring of 2024, Stettler was down to just six practicing physicians, less than half the number needed to meet the region’s population needs.

Today, the community has 13 doctors practicing, with another completing his practice readiness assessment in Drumheller.

“It’s been a phenomenal success,” said Dean Lovell, chair of the Health Professionals Attraction and Retention (HPA&R) Committee.

“It certainly exceeded our expectations of where we’re at today, versus where we were over a year ago.”

The turnaround has been credited to a community effort involving the Town & County of Stettler, the Heartland & Stettler medical clinics, the Stettler Hospital, the Stettler Health Services Foundation, as well as the Stettler Needs Doctors group.

Focus Turns To Retention

Stettler has now gone several months without an emergency room closure, a major improvement from 2024, when temporary shutdowns were frequent.

“We’re not seeing any closures in our emergency rooms, and we don’t foresee any in the next year. That’s a huge relief for our staff and our residents. Both clinics have doctors that are accepting patients,” Lovell noted.

“We just ask people to be patient as those new physicians slowly build their panels. The goal is to ensure everyone in our community has a family doctor, and can get health care services here in Stettler.”

With nearly a full slate of physicians, the focus has now shifted toward retention. Lovell said the committee’s next step is ensuring physicians feel supported and want to stay.

“Every rural community in Alberta is struggling to find and keep doctors. We’ve been very successful with recruitment, now we have to make sure they stay.”

Incentive To Support Doctors

In part, the financial incentive offered to physicians by the municipal governments is credited with attracting doctors to the community.

In July 2025, Stettler Town council approved updates to its physician recruitment & retention policy.

Under the joint agreement with the County of Stettler, new physicians may receive between $50,000 and $70,000 in financial incentives, depending on qualifications.

Each municipality contributes $25,000 to $35,000 per physician, for up to seven recruits under the program.

Doctors who stay in the community for five years are entitled to the full amount. Those who leave within two years must repay it in full, while a prorated repayment applies for those departing between two & five years.

The policy also included a one-year family pass to the Stettler Recreation Centre, aimed at helping new doctors & their families integrate into the community.

The update also clarified compensation for physicians who received partial payments between 2022 & 2024, before the formal policy was introduced.

Skills Day At The Adult Learning Centre

The community’s work on doctor recruitment has also shown a need to help other healthcare professions find the next generation of workers. Lovell touched on the recent success of Skills Day, held at the Stettler Adult Learning Centre on October 8, 2025.

“That was an amazing success,” said Lovell. “We had 38 kids come out, half from Castor & Coronation & they really embraced it.”

The event, led by the Board of Trade, will now become an annual initiative to encourage youth to consider health careers. “If you come from a rural community and go into the healthcare profession, chances are you’ll come back to a rural community,” Lovell said. “We want to plant those seeds early.”

There were eight stations, everything from suturing to IV starts, airway management, spinal normalization, injections, to casting & lab work,” said Lovell.

“We want them to come back and practice in our rural communities. So that’s really what the whole idea of the skills day is. It’s really important that we engage these young adults going into a healthcare profession, and then really entice them back into our communities.”

Notably, the skills day took place during the Alberta teachers strike, which Lovell said was impressive to see.

“You know, they could have stayed home & watched Netflix during the strike. Everyone of those young adults came to Stettler and they enjoyed a day of understanding the skills that they’re going to need if they go into those professions.”