Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced [1] more money for health care on Tuesday.
By Victoria Caminha [2]
BELLEVILLE– Physician recruitment and retention in Belleville and Quinte West area remains a huge issue in the Quinte region.
On Tuesday, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau met with provincial premiers to discuss health care.
Coming out of the meeting, the federal government announced it will spend $196.1 billion on health care over the next 10 years. But lots of questions remain about how the provinces — which are responsible for health care — will spend the money. Will it be enough to deal with a problem faced by many in Ontario — the lack of a family doctor.
My message is clear: Let’s give Canadians the health care they expect – and deserve. We’re making major investments in Canada’s universal, public health care system to do just that, and working with provinces and territories to make real progress. https://t.co/wsAWLAonhR [3] pic.twitter.com/rsckDU7Msm [4]
— Justin Trudeau (@JustinTrudeau) February 8, 2023 [5]
“The shortage that we’re facing has a lot to do with, one demographic, and another certainly has to do with the changes the province has made in medical school admissions,” Karen Poste told QNet News. Poste is in charge of the physician recruitment and retention program in Belleville.
“While we’ve reduced the supply of physicians, we’ve increased the need for physicians, one, because our population is growing, and two, because physicians can do so much more for us than they could 30 years ago that each patient takes up a lot more time for a physician so they can’t have as many patients as they would normally have.”
Paula Mason [6] is in charge of recruitment and retention for Docs by the Bay, which covers Quinte West and Brighton.
“For every doctor that was retiring, we needed to hire two physicians to cover their patients.”
Mason says Docs by the Bay only started actively recruiting new doctors about five years ago.
“Before that, no one was recruiting doctors for family medicine. The hospital was recruiting for the hospitalist roles, but no one was recruiting for family medicine.”
Poste confirmed that “it’s a real challenge for smaller communities to attract physicians.”
And reaction to a QNet News Facebook posts supports that assertion. Our post got a ton of response from members of the community looking for a family doctor.
“I am having the hardest time finding a family doctor,” Jessica Marr.
“I’m a type one diabetic that has end-stage kidney disease, I need a doctor in order to be a candidate for a kidney transplant.”
Dayna Venditello a new Belleville resident originally from Alberta says her mom’s side of the family has a history of heart disease, and her mother’s medical team has advised all her children to get tested for heart issues accordingly. She was advised that she needs a family doctor who knows her patient history. However, she was told the wait list is an estimated eight years.
“I jokingly asked, so to get treatment for this I would just need to wait till I have a heart attack?” Which I got a strange stare, and they replied: Hopefully you would get a doctor before then.”
“I cannot imagine the pain and waiting people who are undiagnosed are going through. (It) makes me think many feel like they are waiting to die as they can’t get in to see the proper specialist for proper diagnosis and treatment.”
Shawna McFadden also from the Belleville community said “My daughter has been on the wait list since we moved here almost 7 years ago… She is on ODSP and can’t get a walk-in doctor to complete the required forms.”
Cassy Andrews from the Belleville community responded to the post as follows: “I have been registered with Health Care Connect, which is supposed to help connect you to a doctor in Ontario, for just over 5 years waiting.”
“I have children that have special needs, and children that need a diagnosis for ADHD, It’s impossible to obtain at most clinics. School will refuse to add support for your child until you have a formal diagnosis. The lack of family doctors is affecting other aspects of people’s lives.”
Poste says cities like Belleville need help to deal with the shortage of family doctors.
“We have been doing our best to hold the province and the federal feet to the fire to try and address these shortages and this issue, particularly for rural communities.”
Belleville is offering an incentive of a $150,000 scholarship to any physician that is approved by council. The candidates eligible for the program will have support from the first day of medical school until the last day of residency.
“We will not poach a doctor from another community that has patients, but if they’re a student or if they have never opened a practice anywhere, then they are eligible for scholarships,” said Poste.
The city of Belleville is also planning on investing in marketing to international medical graduates. Some of the countries where Ontario recognizes doctors are the United States, United Kingdom, South Africa, New Zealand, and Australia.
“Those countries represent to us a really good opportunity to attract some of those doctors because they can get up and operate pretty quickly.”
As for the communities covered by Docs by the Bay, Mason said that the community will be able to see positive changes soon. She says the new family doctors recruited over the past few years are taking on large practices.
Another solution to the problem could be nurse practitioners. According to Poste, nurse practitioners can do 90% of what a family doctor can do, “they’re less than half the cost of a family doctor.”
“If the province could open more funded positions for a nurse practitioner, they could take on the majority of the patients that do not have a family doctor,” she said.
If you don’t have a local family doctor yet, both recruitment managers advised the community to register with the Health Care Connect waiting list.
“We need to have some way to know how many people don’t have a family physician in order to determine how many we need to be looking for,” said Mason.
Poste encourages the community to reach out to MPP Todd Smith [7] and the Minister of Health, Sylvia Jones [8], to make sure that they are aware of the concerns in the area.
“The more it’s talked about, the more likely it is to get action,” she said.
“I think in order to see a change in that in the situation we’re in right now, they need to make decisions now.”