High River's mayor is echoing comments from local doctors who are worried about the state of health care.

Craig Snodgrass says the town needs physicians willing to set up their practices in the town.

"The health and the validity of our hospital, town council clearly understands this is the number one driver as to why people choose to live here and stay here a lot of people specifically choose to move here because of our health services but no community is any good unless you have access to family physicians and that's the trouble that Alberta's getting itself into right now," he says.

"Those students that are coming out of university are not choosing to do their practicum training here, not just High River but they're not choosing to do their practicum training in Alberta and they're not choosing to stay in Alberta or come back to Alberta to open their practices, so what's happening is we are getting into a huge doctor shortage and there are ways to fix it but we need government to take care of that."

He says a lot of it goes back to when Premier Jason Kenney and Health Minister Tyler Shandro tore up the contract with the doctors and the lasting repercussions are what's causing the issue facing the province now.

"This is beyond fixing AHS or fixing health care as a big monster to take on, this is one that can be taken on directly, but it needs commitment from government to value the doctors that we have in the community."

The mayor says talk about replacing doctors in some areas with Licensed Practical Nurses won't work because they have completely different skill sets as to what they can and can't do.

"Our doctors are the critical link that everything that we have in the province and as far as our hospital in High River we need family physicians with their practices in High River to take care of all of us and we need them to work our Emergency room at the hospital so that we have that continuity as well."

He says it's already happening in Pincher Creek and Strathmore and Airdrie because Alberta is not an attractive place for doctors to do their training or set up their practices.

Snodgrass has spoken with the leaders of the UCP, the NDP and the Alberta Party about the issue and how critical it is to address it.