Have you or someone you know been having difficulty finding a family doctor? Have you applied for admittance to a doctor’s practice, or called asking to become a patient only to be refused? Well friend you are not alone in this endeavour. About 3% of family doctors across the province of Ontario, some 385, stopped practicing between March and September 2020. (Unity Health Toronto). That accounts for an estimated 170,000 patients losing access to primary care and was higher than the 1.6% of family doctors who stopped working during a comparable period between 2010 and 2019.
The pandemic has made a bad situation even worst in primary care. Ontarians and Canadians need to address this issue by supporting those who wish to go into family medicine and primary care. This is a near-crisis situation that the Province and Federal Governments seem to be neglecting. As of March 2020, 1.8 million Ontarians did not have a family doctor, and a further 1.7 million Ontarians have a family doctor older than 65 years old. Yes, that is retirement age.
When Ontario locked down the province in 2020, they directed doctors to not see patients unless absolutely necessary. This pushed visits, either in person or virtually down by more than 30%. Doctors who charge the province by a fee-for-service modal lost most of their income while keeping their offices open for the few who visited. Patients in need visited the Emergency offices of hospitals, filling these venues. Then hospitals redirected the patients to private or walk-in clinics that were limited in how many patients they can help. Family Doctors were placed in the middle of a healthcare storm, with patients in need on one side, and provincial governments on the other. In those Doctors that had smaller practices, fewer than 500 patients left the job at a higher rate.
Between 2010-2019 Ontario had 12.247 active Family Doctors, while from 2019 to September 2020 only 11,862. Regionally, Northwestern Ontario, the Niagara Region and Bruce Penninsula Region, Toronto, and Ottawa lost the most doctors. This situation hit hardest in rural communities, where the number of doctors was smaller, to begin with, and the doctor’s influence upon the community was greater. The trend toward retirement found within the medical field in general places our health system into a present and future crisis.
While the provinces are attempting to move patients without crisis needs out of their hospitals, opening up their surgical and emergency wards, the doctors in need continue to place their efforts in peril. Those patients in need continue to go to ERs, often to find rural and smaller community ER’s periodically closed for a few days or a week. The province needs to deal with the increasing costs to maintain its health systems. Medical professionals leave the health system only to return better paid through temp firms.
Is the province trying to bring in some form of privatization within our health system? TwoTiered Medicine is already to hear, with doctor’s offices charging for things once taken care of by the province. Universal Healthcare seems to not work these days, especially when the province ties medical professionals’ hands and denies them the funds they need. Preventive medicine, the most cost-effective healthcare has gone out the window, replaced by triage and reactive medicine.
what can the government do?
1. Institute Homecare as the basis for the health system. If the problem can be done at home, medical professionals visit domestically.
2. Emergency Departments are only for Emergencies.
3. Allow new Canadians who are medically trained to enter the system as quickly as possible. End the Medical Associations’ stranglehold upon who works in the province and where.
4. Make strict annual medical checkups legally essential. Preventive medicine must become legally binding to all citizens.
5. Medical Professionals must be the highest paid civil servants.
6. The medical system must be independent of provincial management, with active and powerful auditors present to make sure the system is operating cost-effectively and properly.
7. Those studying to become Medical professionals should receive a full allowance for their studies. Only if they graduate into the system all their education should be paid for by the province.
8. Complete family services should be offered to medical professionals, such as child care, family emergency crisis management, etc…
New doctors, who are beholding to the province, should begin their residency in rural areas of the province, generating experience, people skills, and patience in service. Nursing should be treated in the same manner. The public must give these professionals what they want and need, and demand of them provincials service for a five-year period, perhaps longer. The staffing shortage within the most important department our government has must not happen again. Taxes will go up, but what are you worried about when your loved one is ill? Money or their welfare?
EDMONTON – RCMP say a second suspect has been arrested in the killing of an Alberta county worker.
Mounties say 28-year-old Elijah Strawberry was taken into custody Friday at a house on O’Chiese First Nation.
Colin Hough, a worker with Rocky View County, was shot and killed while on the job on a rural road east of Calgary on Aug. 6.
Another man who worked for Fortis Alberta was shot and wounded, and RCMP said the suspects fled in a Rocky View County work truck.
Police later arrested Arthur Wayne Penner, 35, and charged him with first-degree murder and attempted murder, and a warrant was issued for Strawberry’s arrest.
RCMP also said there was a $10,000 reward for information leading to the arrest of Strawberry, describing him as armed and dangerous.
Chief Supt. Roberta McKale, told a news conference in Edmonton that officers had received tips and information over the last few weeks.
“I don’t know of many members that when were stopped, fuelling up our vehicles, we weren’t keeping an eye out, looking for him,” she said.
But officers had been investigating other cases when they found Strawberry.
“Our investigators were in O’Chiese First Nation at a residence on another matter and the major crimes unit was there working another file and ended up locating him hiding in the residence,” McKale said.
While an investigation is still underway, RCMP say they’re confident both suspects in the case are in police custody.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 13, 2024.
RICHMOND, B.C. – The Integrated Homicide Investigation Team says the 26-year-old son of a man found dead on British Columbia’s Sunshine Coast has been charged with his murder.
Police say 58-year-old Henry Doyle was found badly injured on a forest service road in Egmont last September and died of his injuries.
The homicide team took over when the BC Coroners Service said the man’s death was suspicious.
It says in a statement that the BC Prosecution Service has approved one count of first-degree murder against the man’s son, Jackson Doyle.
Police say the accused will remain in custody until at least his next court appearance.
The homicide team says investigators remained committed to solving the case with the help of the community of Egmont, the RCMP on the Sunshine Coast and in Richmond, and the Vancouver Police Department.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 13, 2024.
VANCOUVER – Mediated talks between the union representing HandyDART workers in Metro Vancouver and its employer, Transdev, have broken off without an agreement following 15 hours of talks.
Joe McCann, president of Amalgamated Transit Union Local 1724, says they stayed at the bargaining table with help from a mediator until 2 a.m. Friday and made “some progress.”
However, he says the union negotiators didn’t get an offer that they could recommend to the membership.
McCann says that in some ways they are close to an agreement, but in other areas they are “miles apart.”
About 600 employees of the door-to-door transit service for people who can’t navigate the conventional transit system have been on strike since last week, pausing service for all but essential medical trips.
McCann asks HandyDART users to be “patient,” since they are trying to get not only a fair contract for workers but also a better service for customers.
He says it’s unclear when the talks will resume, but he hopes next week at the latest.
The employer, Transdev, didn’t reply to an interview request before publication.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 13, 2024.
