Abbotsford welcomes 26 doctors amid B.C.-wide physician shortage

ABBOTSFORD — Abbotsford is marking itself immune to what appears to be an ongoing B.C. doctor shortage by welcoming a host of new physicians into the community over the past year.

The Abbotsford Division of Family Practice says 26 family doctors and locums have joined the community in 2025, with 80 per cent of doctors staying local after completing their residency.

The nonprofit says these rates stem from a coordinated pathway designed to support international medical graduates (IMG) entering the community through programs such as the provincial practice-ready assessment and the UBC return-of-service pathways.

Dr. Caroline Cook, the Division’s program lead for IMGs, drew on her own experiences as an IMG from England in developing the initiative.

“I saw a massive opportunity to improve how we welcome these doctors,” Cook said.

“We support IMGs to have a stronger application and be more successful about landing a residency spot. By then, you already have connections with them so that when they’re done residency and they’re considering where to work, they’re coming to Abbotsford and saying, ‘This is where I want to be.’”

The Abbotsford Regional Hospital and Cancer Centre is also welcoming nine new doctors as part of UBC’s two-year family practice residency program this year.

These efforts have helped B.C. lead the country in the number of doctors per capita, with recruitment targeting U.S.-trained health care workers attracting more than 500 people to the province as of March.

Band-aid for an internally bleeding body

The B.C. government says more than 15,000 physicians are currently working in the province.

That amounts to around 2.71 doctors per 1,000 people – roughly four points above the World Health Organization’s 2006 recommended minimum for health care workers and three points above the national average.

Despite this, wait times remain backlogged across B.C. and nationwide, and reports suggest this is due to a lack of long-term care facilities, misaligned hospital budgets, and poor social conditions affecting the broader population’s health, such as poverty and housing shortages.

“We focus on supply — how many doctors, nurses, and hospital beds we have — while giving far less attention to demand,” said Dr. Paul Kershaw in a November 2025 UBC study.

“That demand has been amplified not only by population aging, but also by governments’ failure to invest with equal urgency in the social and ecological foundations of health.”

B.C. is facing a long-term care shortage after the government delayed construction of seven projects in February’s budget announcement, affecting less urban centres such as Abbotsford, Chilliwack and Delta.

Kershaw’s report says seniors, whose care is equivalent to that of “several young adults”, make up 20 percent of the B.C. population.

• B.C. faces long-term care shortage, and decision to delay facilities is drawing fire

“Insufficiencies in long-term care and community capacity directly drive hospital and [Emergency Department] overcrowding. When older adults cannot access these services, they remain in hospital beds after their acute medical issues are resolved,” read a statement from the Canadian Association of Emergency Physicians.

While deep-rooted issues still need to be untangled across the larger health care system, the Abbotsford Division is just happy to patch one thing up for its own little corner of the country.

“If Abbotsford is known as a good, highly supportive place to come and work for IMGs, and we have more of them working here and sharing that message, it will just continue to be a positive experience,” Cook said. “Our patient attachment gap won’t be as bad, and we can continue to enhance the process and retain our people.”