OTTAWA -- According to a Canadian military physician, critical shortages of doctors, nurses and other medical staff mean the Canadian army and its allies in Afghanistan are being forced to rely on each other in emergencies like Sunday's suicide bomb attack.
Canada's military has a 35% shortfall in deployable doctors and the problem is growing as it begins its most dangerous Afghan mission yet, the doctor in charge of recruiting the Forces' medical staff said yesterday.
"Right now we have a critical shortage of general-duty medical officers in uniform," Lt.-Col. Randy Russell told The Canadian Press. "It's very difficult to support deployed operations, disaster assistance relief and so on."
The problem is compounded by the fact the deployable medical officers - captains and majors - form the pool from which the military draws and trains much-needed specialists such as anesthesiologists and surgeons, Russell said.
Government and military officials suggest those specialties will be in even higher demand over the course of the next mission starting next month, when 2,200 Canadian troops move into Kandahar.
Half those troops will take on offensive duties. Defence Minister Bill Graham and the chief of staff, Gen. Rick Hillier, have warned Canadians to expect casualties.
On Sunday, those warnings were borne out as the senior diplomat of the multi-faceted mission, Glyn Berry, was killed by a suicide bomber.
Berry's remains were expected to arrive in his native England yesterday.
Three soldiers wounded in the blast were initially treated by a Canadian doctor on the scene, then taken to a U.S. army field hospital where they were attended to by an international team of physicians.
They were then transferred to a U.S. military hospital in Landstuhl, Germany. Family members arrived from Canada to be at their bedsides yesterday.
Currently, military doctors work shorter deployments than other soldiers - usually three months instead of six. But they deploy more often.
"At some point in time, that becomes a life-dissatisfier for your family, and so it becomes harder to retain that group,"said Russell.
Historically, 60 to 70% of military doctors leave the Forces as soon as their four-year commitments are up, he added. Last year, it improved to 20 %.
Russell and his staff are working on sweetening the pot for prospective military doctors.
Family physicians licensed in Canada currently receive a $225,000 signing bonus in exchange for their four-year commitments.
Their pay ranges from $120,000 to $165,000 annually, plus professional development supplements.
Medical students also receive incentives, including $40,000 bonuses for second-year students and $110,000 bonuses for fourth-year students along with $40,000- to $50,000-a-year salaries and texts until they graduate.
