North Denmark adds GPs as doctor shortage eases

North Denmark has added 17 practising doctors over the past five years, bringing the total to 350, as the region’s long-running shortage begins to ease, DR reports. A new clinic is due to open in Frederikshavn in January.

“The trend has turned, and we can look towards a reasonable future, including for general practitioners in areas with particular needs,” said Mogens Gade, chair of the Vendsyssel Health Council in the North Denmark Region.

Dinah Høngaard, chair of the regional branch of the Organisation of General Practitioners, said the increase means more patients can access a GP more easily.

The region now has six region-run clinics, which it opens when it cannot find a practising doctor for an area. In 2017, there were 29 clinics run either by the region or by private companies under contract. The region phased out the latter type in 2025.

North Denmark aims to have 500 practising doctors and no region-run clinics by 2035. Gade said he was confident the target would be reached, pointing to the medical degree programme in Aalborg, which opened in 2010. Training a specialist in general medicine takes many years, and the region is now beginning to see more graduates from the programme.

Høngaard also credited efforts to direct new doctors to places with the greatest shortages. She expects the number of new specialists to increase further in the coming years.

The new Frederikshavn clinic will be run by doctors Padchalack Strøm and Olaf Emil Strøm, who moved from Bornholm to North Jutland to establish the practice. The couple said they chose Frederikshavn because it needed more GPs and that they hoped to make a permanent home there.

“We want to go somewhere we are needed,” Olaf Emil Strøm said.