Estevan is now up to 13 doctors in the city after the hiring of Dr. Victor Temenu, a full-time obstetrician and gynecologist. His practice began in Estevan on January 25th at the St. Joseph's Hospital, and according to Hospital Executive Director Greg Hoffort he was a recruit who kind of fell into the lap of the hospital.

"It's been a long search and a lot of recruiting and a lot of efforts to bring another physician to town with his specialty. Fortunately, this one came as a referral from a former physician from Estevan, so one of our former obstetrician-gynecologists referred this fellow to us, and after meetings, interviews, and a lot of vetting from the Health Authority, we were pleased to be able to come to an agreement with Dr. Temenu and he's now full time permanent in Estevan."

Dr. Temenu grew up in Africa and graduated from the University of Benin City, Nigeria before he took his residency for five and a half years in Johannesburg, South Africa. While this is his first full-time practice as an obstetrician, the time he put in and the hospital he worked at combined with the referral from a familiar doctor shows a lot of promise according to Hoffort.

"What's really interesting about Dr. Temenu is his five and a half year residency in Johannesburg, South Africa in one of the largest hospitals and highest volume hospitals in the world actually. He does come with a great deal of experience that he gained during his residency, and we're one of his first full-time jobs post-residency, but that residency provided him an enormous opportunity to learn the obstetrical and gynecology skills that he has."

With Dr. Temenu being the only dedicated obstetrician/gynecologist in the city, there is still more that the hospital would like to do. That said, having Dr. Temenu in the city opens up possibilities for women's health care in the city that were not here previously.

"This is a really solid step forward in the ability to cover obstetrics, the ability to once again start to look at some women's health programs in the city with his gynecology skills, some gynecology surgery will be possible again, a lot of welcomed additions to our community, and again we can't say enough about the obstetric group that has covered us and will work with us and Dr. Temenu moving forward to continue to provide full-time obstetrical services in Estevan." 

There is a pool of physicians who have been covering obstetrics to make sure that someone is always ready to deliver a baby in the city, but that group has been covering for the past year. That group will still be assisting with the work that Dr. Temenu does to make sure that there is still a work/life balance that offers a little more incentive for all physicians, not just Dr. Temenu, to stick around a little longer.

"It allowed us to provide gap-free obstetrics for the most part and so now this group will be important in to help or to work with Dr. Temenu a new to cover obstetrics on a full-time basis. Dr. Temenu will be in Estevan full-time permanent and the obstetrics pool will be supporting him, roughly covering 50% of the time."

With 13 total physicians in the city, Hoffort is happy that some progress has been made but would still like to hire more. Another obstetrician would be ideal for the area, but there is a doctor shortage across the province, country, and many parts of the world that are all competing to try and bring more doctors into the area which has made that challenge tough.

"We certainly are always recruiting. We're recruiting family physicians, we're recruiting a second full-time coverage for the obstetrics program and also anesthesiology coverage. Right now we are providing gap-free service because of the positions we have in place, but to try and make this more sustainable where we're trying to recruit some physicians with similar coverage, so we can just have that create the practice that has a work life balance that rewards them for all of their years in education, allows them to practice medicine they way they hope to, and really shore up the services in Estevan, and we're getting close."

Dr. Temenu's practice is run out to the St. Joseph's Hospital Foundation Clinic.