“About 1,600 patients had to go out on their own, at a time when Ontario has a massive family doctor and primary care provider shortage,” said Toronto member of provincial parliament Jessica Bell. “Ontarians should be using their OHIP card to see their family doctor, not their credit card.”
Family doctors are facing a system that has become increasingly complex and continue to be devalued compared to other areas of medicine, said Dr. David White, professor emeritus, department of family and community medicine, University of Toronto.
“I think it’s happening in Canada, despite not being what the population wants, and I think governments are, in some cases, allowing it if they’re oriented more toward private sector solutions,” said White, of the private clinics. “And in other cases, they are certainly not prepared to shut it down because it would look like they were just making life more difficult. So it really is a problem of how we appropriately fund, particularly the primary care aspect.”
Barber, who is in the faculty of medicine at Queen’s University, said the system is making it unattractive for young doctors to move into family medicine.
“There’s nobody that wants to take on a cradle-to-grave practice anymore,” he said. “It’s just not joyful, it’s not any fun, it’s stressful, it’s a failing business model.”
The increasing trend to private clinics has sparked a renewed debate over universal health care. But it is also exposing a provincial government that has long under-funded and deprioritized family medicine. And the results are dire.
Next month: In part two, we look at why family doctors don’t want to be family doctors any longer and what the health-care system’ needs now.
