Where Is There a Lack of Family Doctors
Opinion: Don't blame family unit doctors for shortage in Quebec
Premier'southward threats of coercion only bring bitterness and md departures.
Family physicians are being accused by Premier François Legault of failing to absorb the 800,000 Quebecers without a primary care doctor. Legault claims he has tried to no avail to negotiate with the Fédération des médecins omnipraticiens du Québec. We are no longer among his guardian angels. He says his patience has worn thin and he volition non hesitate to wield coercive measures against "underperforming" family doctors.
With all due respect to our premier, these accusations are both misguided and disputable. Family physicians have absorbed more than one.1 one thousand thousand patients into their practices in the past five years. Patient registration has stagnated because of the pandemic and doctor retirements. To grow from 400,000 to 800,000 Quebecers without family physicians in three years is certainly not considering the population has grown substantially or because doctors dramatically cutting their practices.
Information technology is primarily because of retirements. What other profession is singled out when its members retire, leave the profession or die? We were short 1,000 family unit physicians iii years ago. Among the ix,500 in Quebec, in that location are 3,147 over the age of 65, including 1,281 over 70 and 164 over 80.
We intendance for our patients to the best of our ability with the resources nosotros have available. Across our patient consultations, an additional thirty per cent of our time is spent on administrative tasks related to patient intendance. Some of us may be fortunate enough to have nurses or nurse practitioners. Many do not, as funding is provided selectively by the government. During the pandemic, family medicine group nurses were transferred to hospitals. Not all have returned. Contrary to other Canadian provinces, 40 per cent of Quebec family doctors also piece of work in ERs, CHSLDs, hospitals, obstetrics, palliative care, teaching and assistants and are not bachelor to run into patients in offices.
We do not determine Quebec wellness intendance policies or establish standards of care or the number of doctors who tin piece of work in a given region. We do not prepare admissions to medical schools nor command admissions to the increasingly unpopular family medicine residency positions. We are just bystanders watching the consequences of the PREM system that was designed to distribute doctors across Quebec, only has caused a perverse outcome when someone retires with no replacement. Recruitment is adjacent to impossible. There will be 30 fewer new family physicians immune in the Montreal region for 2022 every bit those positions are existence redirected to the Montérégie.
We have lived through half-dozen successive reforms to health care since 1989 under Marc-Yvan Côté, Jean Rochon, Philippe Couillard, Yves Bolduc, Réjean Hébert and Gaétan Barrette. The Legault government now intends some other massive reform in an already scarred health care network that is but kickoff to crawl out of a global pandemic.
We have seen commission later on commission laud new visions for reforms, from the local system of wellness care to restructuring to regionalization through the concluding round of Barrette's overriding recentralization. This asynchronous blueprint of costly successive network transformations negatively impacts our ability to office efficiently in providing patient intendance.
Miscues from the past may be an opportunity to plan more than wisely if we take learned anything from them. If we are to provide intendance for all Quebecers, we demand more administrative and nursing resources that enable us to spend more than fourth dimension in direct patient intendance. Our politicians must stop chirapsia their chests blaming doctors for the woes in stagnating enrolments. They must recognize that admission should not be singularly determined by registration with a family doctor. Primary health care teams are the only feasible time to come of an efficient and comprehensive health network.
Quebec needs to re-establish a more sanguine and collaborative climate with family physicians. We ask our politicians not to further endanger what is already very fragile.
Threats of coercion only bring bitterness and departures from practice. Nosotros remain an integral office of Quebec health intendance. While our politicians accept spent enormous resource and done much posturing to seek solutions, we have been and will continue doing what nosotros know best, providing care to our patients.
Brian Gore is a family physician in Westmount.
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Source: https://montrealgazette.com/opinion/opinion-dont-blame-us-for-shortage-of-family-doctors-in-quebec
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