The recent retirement of a well-known and only ophthalmologist in Swift Current has left a void in the city.

Nearly three weeks ago Dr. Malcolm Banks closed his Banks Eye Centre drawing an end to 42 years of service to southwestern Saskatchewan residents.

For the last seven years, the 1967 medical school graduate searched for someone to take over his local practice but to no avail.

"I had several people sort of show interest and then just drop out," he said. "Right now attracting people to a small town in the prairies is pretty difficult as there is a nationwide shortage of trained ophthalmologists."

Now that task is up to the Saskatchewan Health Authority (SHA) with nobody else in Swift Current practicing the rare but required trade.

"The SHA/saskdocs is committed to support ongoing physician recruitment for communities across the province, including the Swift Current area," the SHA said in an email.

According to the SHA, they're trying to recruit ophthalmologists on a number of international, national, and provincial (saskdocs.ca) websites for vacancy such as the Swift Current one.

"Some of the benefits of practicing ophthalmology in Saskatchewan include competitive wages (Saskatchewan ophthalmologists are amongst the highest paid in the country), a low cost of living, and short commutes," the SHA said. "There are also incentives for specialists, such as the SMA specialist recruitment incentive."

The recruitment process for the position doesn't include Swift Current MLA Everett Hindley, but his role as Saskatchewan's Minister of Seniors and Rural and Remote Health has him working closely with the SHA on these types of issues.

"Recruiting, retaining, incentivizing, and training healthcare providers," he said is part of the province's healthcare recruiting recipe. "We're looking at all of those avenues and also establishing a new healthcare human resources agency that will focus not only on any one particular of this four-point plan, emegration is an important part of that but so is adding more training seats."

Hindley did acknowledge the SHA has been actively trying to fill the position for a while and he's hoping the empty chair is short-lived.

"We've been so very fortunate to have Dr. Banks here in our community," he said. "He became a friend to many and a real pillar of our community. To Dr. Banks, we greatly appreciate his dedication to southwest Saskatchewan over these many years."