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Canadian-born family doctor struggles to come home through a wall of red tape – CBC.ca

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1 year ago

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Canada is grappling with a severe shortage of family doctors — but Canadian-born family physicians working abroad are fighting to obtain the paperwork they need to practise here.

Dr. Stephanie DeMarchi, a general practitioner born in Hamilton, Ont. who has worked in Australia for the past ten years, is one of those doctors.

She trained at the University of Queensland and spent her residency and years as a GP working in rural Australia. She now wants to come home to Canada to take over from her mother, a family doctor in Hamilton who is retiring soon.

But a tangle of red tape has made the process an arduous one. She’s been in a battle with Canada’s health-care bureaucracy for nearly 16 months to get the licence she needs to practise.

In April 2022, DeMarchi first opened a Physicians Apply account under a program run by the Medical Council of Canada (MCC), the body that evaluates medical graduates and physicians.

In October, she sat for an eight-hour MCC exam testing medical knowledge. She said the test set her back a few thousand dollars.

Then she moved with her Australian husband and two young children to Canada. She said she assumed the process would be complete in the near term, since she’s already a practising doctor.

That didn’t happen — she still doesn’t have what she needs to work in Canada.

DeMarchi said she had to move back to Australia by herself to keep her Australian licence current while the MCC works to verify documents like her medical degree, post-graduate certificate, resume and police background check.

Dr. Stephanie DeMarchi is pictured on a beach with her family.
DeMarchi, right, said she had to move back to Australia by herself to keep her Australian licence current while the Medical Council of Canada works to verify her documents. Her family stayed behind in southern Ontario. (Submitted by Stephanie DeMarchi)

Those documents must be approved by the MCC before it can issue a “licentiate,” something anyone looking to practise medicine in Canada must have in order to apply for a licence.

She said she’s been holed up in Gundagai, a small town in rural New South Wales about 390 kilometres from Sydney, living in a caravan park and working at a local practice while her family is far away in southern Ontario.

“It all feels so intentional, like they just don’t want me,” DeMarchi told CBC News.

“The process just has to change. It’s not only affecting lives but it has the real potential to destroy lives as well.

“I don’t know why Canada wouldn’t want to have these skilled workers in a time of crisis. I don’t know why they haven’t created a much more polished, efficient system.”

WATCH: Canada is losing out on hundreds of qualified doctors each year. Here’s why 

Canada is losing out on hundreds of qualified doctors each year. Here’s why

5 months ago

Duration 2:07

Canada is losing out on hundreds of qualified Canadian doctors trained abroad who can’t practice because they find it difficult to get residencies here due to a combination of red tape and bias.

It’s not clear who exactly is responsible for the MCC and its perceived failures and shortcomings.

The MCC is a national body that operates across the country. In a statement, Health Canada said it “does not have any authority” over the “independent organization” that assesses physicians’ competence.

But Ottawa does provide the MCC with cash.

In June, it floated $28.8 million for the council’s “Modernizing Mandatory Physician Activities Enabling Safe Patient Care” framework — a lengthy name for an initiative that’s meant to make the medical credentials assessment process less cumbersome.

DeMarchi said she just wants the MCC to return her calls and emails and speedily review documents issued by a fellow Commonwealth country with a top-tier health-care system.

Tire tracks lead up to a windmill in a drought-affected landscape near the New South Wales town of Gundagai, located around 400 kilometres south-west of Sydney.
Tire tracks lead up to a windmill in a drought-afflicted landscape near the New South Wales town of Gundagai, about 400 kilometres southwest of Sydney. Dr. DeMarchi has been practicing medicine in this small Australian town while she waits for Canadian medical regulators to verify her records. (David Gray/Reuters)

In a media statement, a spokesperson for the MCC said it’s “receiving a higher-than-normal number of applications.”

“We are actively working to address the current backlog by, among other things, hiring additional staff in this area of the organization,” the spokesperson said.

But the MCC process isn’t the only hurdle facing DeMarchi and others seeking the licence they need to practise medicine in Canada.

Like other health-care related files, physician recruitment in Canada is a jurisdictional quagmire.

There’s a parallel process that would-be doctors have to go through with provincial colleges of physicians and surgeons, the bodies responsible for licensing doctors.

In theory, the MCC is supposed to be the agency tasked with gathering and verifying foreign credentials and then passing that data on to the provincial colleges of physicians and surgeons. But DeMarchi said she has run into trouble with the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario (CPSO). They want her to reproduce some documents that she’s already sent to the MCC.

That might sound like an easy fix but DeMarchi has to pay a steep fee and wait for the Australian regulator to create new copies of documents she’s already provided to another Canadian health-care gatekeeper.

“That was a nightmare. It’s absolutely ludicrous,” DeMarchi said.

“They just keep telling me, ‘Look, ma’am, these things take time.’ They’re not saying, ‘This is a Canadian who’s studied and trained and she’s ready to go, let’s expedite this.’ Nope.”

DeMarchi said the CPSO recently rejected one of her reference letters because the agent reviewing it wasn’t sure if the date was formatted on a month-day-year or day-month-year basis. CPSO wants the month first.

DeMarchi said there should be a single point person who handles inter-agency paperwork issues so in-demand doctors don’t have to wade through the labyrinthian system by themselves.

“These regulatory bodies, they’re not speaking to each other. And us doctors, we’re getting the message. Canada is essentially saying, ‘We don’t want doctors, we don’t need you,'” she said.

A nurse is seen working with a patient at the Halifax Infirmary in Halifax.
A nurse works with a patient in the intensive care unit at the Halifax Infirmary in Halifax on Feb. 25, 2022. Canada is facing a shortage of health-care professionals while thousands of Canadian-born, foreign-trained doctors work abroad. (Andrew Vaughan/The Canadian Press)

But Canada does need doctors.

After years of restrained spending by federal and provincial governments and a generation of protectionist policies that restrict access to medical residency programs, Canada’s health-care system is short nearly 17,000 physicians, according to recent data compiled by the Royal Bank of Canada.

The problem is expected to get worse.

In the next five years, as the baby boomer cohort retires en masse and the population grows by some 500,000 people per year, Canada will be short an estimated 43,900 physicians, the bank reported — including more than 30,000 family doctors and general practitioners.

Rosemary Pawliuk is president of the Society for Canadians Studying Medicine Abroad and an expert on Canada’s physician licensing system.

She said bureaucratic delays such as those DeMarchi has experienced are dangerous — because they mean some sick people won’t have ready access to a qualified family doctor.

“It’s not just this physician that’s being hurt. She’s not the only one. Many, many more of us — the public — are being hurt,” Pawliuk told CBC News.

“We’ve got 6,000,000 Canadians without a family physician. They’re the quarterback for our system. The family physician reduces your suffering or refers you to somebody who can. The bureaucracy is totally blind to the fact that people are dying, literally dying and suffering because they can’t get a physician to treat them.”

Rosemary Pawliuk is seen sitting for an interview.
Rosemary Pawliuk is the president of the Society for Canadians Studying Medicine Abroad. She says the current residency selection system puts internationally trained Canadian doctors at a serious disadvantage. (Dillon Hodgin/CBC)

Pawliuk said there’s little accountability for the actions of bodies like the MCC — the federal government, the provinces and the colleges don’t have much of a say over how it operates. The web of competing organizations, each with some sort of role in the regulatory process, is a needless headache, she said.

“Every one of these entities has their own little fiefdom to develop. You just get lost in the red tape,” she said.

It shouldn’t take more than a year for a qualified physician trained in a country like Australia to get licensed to practise, she said.

“That’s outrageous, absolutely outrageous. I don’t know what the problem is or what’s going on.”

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My Boy Prince to race against older horses in $1-million Woodbine Mile

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39 mins ago

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September 13, 2024

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TORONTO – He’s firmly among Canada’s top three-year-olds but My Boy Prince faces a stiff test Saturday at Woodbine Racetrack.

The ’24 King’s Plate runner-up will be part of a global field in the $1-million Woodbine Mile turf event. Not only will it be My Boy Prince’s first race against older competition but among the seven other starters will be such horses as Naval Power (Great Britain), Big Rock (France) and Filo Di Arianna (Brazil).

My Boy Prince will race for the first time since finishing second to filly Caitlinhergrtness in the Plate on Aug. 23.

“It’s his first try against older horses and it’s hard to say where he fits in,” said trainer Mark Casse. “This time of year running a three-year-old against older horses, it’s like running a teenager against college athletes.

“We’re doing it because we believe a mile on the turf is his preferred surface … we wanted to give him a shot at this. (American owner Gary Barber) is someone who likes to think outside the box and take calculated risks so we’re going to see where he fits in.”

Casse, 16 times Canada’s top trainer, is a Hall of Famer both here and in the U.S. He’s also a two-time Woodbine Mile winner with filly Tepin (2016) and World Approval (2017).

Sahin Civaci will again ride My Boy Prince, Canada’s top two-year-old male who has six wins and 10 money finishes (6-3-1) in 11 career starts. The horse will be one of three Casse trainees in the race with Filo Di Arianna (ridden by Sovereign Award winner Kazushi Kimura) and Win for the Money (veteran Woodbine jockey Patrick Husbands aboard).

Naval Power, a four-year-old, has finished in the money in eight of nine starts (six wins, twice second) and will race in Canada for the first time. He comes to Woodbine with second-place finishes in two Grade 1 turf races.

Big Rock, another four-year-old, makes his North American debut Saturday. The horse has five wins and five second-place finishes in 14 starts but has struggled in ’24, finishing sixth, 10th and fifth in three races.

Filo Di Arianna is a four-time graded stakes winner with nine victories, three seconds and a third from 17 starts. It was Canada’s ’22 top male sprinter and champion male turf horse.

Other starters include Playmea Tune, Niagara Skyline and Secret Reserve.

Playmea Tune, a four-year-old, is trained by Josie Carrol. The gelding has made three starts, winning twice and finishing second in the Grade 3 Bold Venture on Aug. 23.

Woodbine-based Niagara Skyline is a six-year-old with 13 money finishes (six wins, five seconds, twice third) in 24-lifetime starts. The John Charlambous trainee has reached the podium (1-1-1) in all three races this year.

Secret Reserve, also a six-year-old, has finished in the money in 15-of-26 starts (six wins, one second, eight thirds). The horse, at 44-1, was third in the Grade 2 King Edward Stakes over a mile on the E.P. Taylor turf course.

The Mile highlights a stellar card featuring six graded stakes races. Also on tap are the $750,000 E.P. Taylor Stakes (fillies and mares), $500,000 bet365 Summer Stakes (two-year-olds) and $500,000 Johnnie Walker Natalma Stakes (two-year-old fillies), all Grade 1 turf events.

The Mile, Natalma and Summer winners earn automatic entries into the Breeders’ Cup at Del Mar in November.

Casse has won all four races, earning his first E.P. Taylor title last year with filly Fev Rover, Canada’s horse of the year and champion female turf horse. Fev Rover will defend her title Saturday against a field that includes Moira, the ’22 King’s Plate winner and Canada’s horse of the year trained by Woodbine’s Kevin Attard.

“It (E.P. Taylor) was definitely on my bucket list because it had eluded us,” Casse said. “But I honestly hadn’t realized I’d won all four of them, hadn’t really thought about it.”

Casse will have horses in all four turf races Saturday. Arguably the most intriguing matchup will be between Moira and Fev Rover, who ran 1-2, respectively, in a photo finish Aug. 11 in the Grade 2 Beverly D. Stakes, a 1 3/16-mile turf race, at Virginia’s Colonial Downs.

“What’s funny is the two of them went all the way to Virginia and she beat us by a nose,” Casse said. “We could’ve done that at Woodbine.

“There’s two of the best fillies in the world both from Toronto and they’re going to be competing Saturday.”

Some question having so many solid races on a single card but Casse likes the strategy.

“I think it’s a good thing,” he said. “On Saturday, the main focus on horse racing in the world will be on Woodbine and that’s because it’s such a great card.

“It’s an international day, there’s horses coming from everywhere and we’re going to do our best to represent Canada.”

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 13, 2024.



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Former world No. 1 Sharapova wins fan vote for International Tennis Hall of Fame

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46 mins ago

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September 13, 2024

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NEWPORT, R.I. (AP) — Maria Sharapova, a five-time Grand Slam singles champion, led the International Tennis Hall of Fame’s fan vote her first year on the ballot — an important part to possible selection to the hall’s next class.

The organization released the voting results Friday. American doubles team Bob and Mike Bryan finished second with Canada’s Daniel Nestor third.

The Hall of Fame said tens of thousands of fans from 120 countries cast ballots. Fan voting is one of two steps in the hall’s selection process. The second is an official group of journalists, historians, and Hall of Famers from the sport who vote on the ballot for the hall’s class of 2025.

“I am incredibly grateful to the fans all around the world who supported me during the International Tennis Hall of Fame’s fan votes,” Sharapova said in a statement. “It is a tremendous honor to be considered for the Hall of Fame, and having the fans’ support makes it all the more special.”

Sharapova became the first Russian woman to reach No. 1 in the world. She won Wimbledon in 2004, the U.S. Open in 2006 and the Australian Open in 2008. She also won the French Open twice, in 2012 and 2014.

Sharapova was also part of Russia’s championship Fed Cup team in 2008 and won a silver medal at the London Olympics in 2012.

To make the hall, candidates must receive 75% or higher on combined results of the official voting group and additional percentage from the fan vote. Sharapova will have an additional three percentage points from winning the fan vote.

The Bryans, who won 16 Grand Slam doubles titles, will have two additional percentage points and Nestor, who won eight Grand Slam doubles titles, will get one extra percentage point.

The hall’s next class will be announced late next month.

___

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Roots sees room for expansion in activewear, reports $5.2M Q2 loss and sales drop

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52 mins ago

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September 13, 2024

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TORONTO – Roots Corp. may have built its brand on all things comfy and cosy, but its CEO says activewear is now “really becoming a core part” of the brand.

The category, which at Roots spans leggings, tracksuits, sports bras and bike shorts, has seen such sustained double-digit growth that Meghan Roach plans to make it a key part of the business’ future.

“It’s an area … you will see us continue to expand upon,” she told analysts on a Friday call.

The Toronto-based retailer’s push into activewear has taken shape over many years and included several turns as the official designer and supplier of Team Canada’s Olympic uniform.

But consumers have had plenty of choice when it comes to workout gear and other apparel suited to their sporting needs. On top of the slew of athletic brands like Nike and Adidas, shoppers have also gravitated toward Lululemon Athletica Inc., Alo and Vuori, ramping up competition in the activewear category.

Roach feels Roots’ toehold in the category stems from the fit, feel and following its merchandise has cultivated.

“Our product really resonates with (shoppers) because you can wear it through multiple different use cases and occasions,” she said.

“We’ve been seeing customers come back again and again for some of these core products in our activewear collection.”

Her remarks came the same day as Roots revealed it lost $5.2 million in its latest quarter compared with a loss of $5.3 million in the same quarter last year.

The company said the second-quarter loss amounted to 13 cents per diluted share for the quarter ended Aug. 3, the same as a year earlier.

In presenting the results, Roach reminded analysts that the first half of the year is usually “seasonally small,” representing just 30 per cent of the company’s annual sales.

Sales for the second quarter totalled $47.7 million, down from $49.4 million in the same quarter last year.

The move lower came as direct-to-consumer sales amounted to $36.4 million, down from $37.1 million a year earlier, as comparable sales edged down 0.2 per cent.

The numbers reflect the fact that Roots continued to grapple with inventory challenges in the company’s Cooper fleece line that first cropped up in its previous quarter.

Roots recently began to use artificial intelligence to assist with daily inventory replenishments and said more tools helping with allocation will go live in the next quarter.

Beyond that time period, the company intends to keep exploring AI and renovate more of its stores.

It will also re-evaluate its design ranks.

Roots announced Friday that chief product officer Karuna Scheinfeld has stepped down.

Rather than fill the role, the company plans to hire senior level design talent with international experience in the outdoor and activewear sectors who will take on tasks previously done by the chief product officer.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 13, 2024.

Companies in this story: (TSX:ROOT)

The Canadian Press. All rights reserved.



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