The following statement was given today in the House of Assembly by the Honourable Lela Evans, Minister of Health and Community Services:

Speaker, today is World Family Doctor Day, a day I am pleased to stand here and celebrate. Our doctors have long been at the heart of community medicine, especially in rural communities.

Considering the skills, education and practice required to be a family doctor, I am pleased to announce that we intend to work with the Newfoundland and Labrador Medical Association to begin the process of formally recognizing family medicine as a specialty in this province.

We also reaffirm our commitment to address overhead for fee-for-service family doctors working outside Newfoundland and Labrador Health Services facilities.

Family doctors play a crucial role on the front lines of our health care system and I’d like to recognize one who exemplifies this role: Dr. Andrew Hunt.

Dr. Hunt practices family and emergency medicine in his hometown of Twillingate and is Assistant Dean of Distributed Medical Education at Memorial’s Faculty of Medicine. In recognition of his service to rural communities for 10 or more years, he recently received the Rural Service Award from the Society of Rural Physicians of Canada.

I ask all the members of this honourable house to join me in wishing all family doctors and the College of Family Physicians a happy World Family Doctor Day.