> healthcare Doctor Shortage
The hunt for A Family doctor
F
Changing career choices, booming population leaving many residents out in the cold
inding a family doctor continues to be a problem in British Columbia.
Estimates put the number of new family physicians needed each year at 450, but only about 300 set themselves up in practice. About 700,000 B.C. residents were without a family doctor in 2014 with around 200,000 actively looking for one — up from 615,000 without a doctor and 176,000 actively looking in 2010. A notice on the Victoria Medical Society website says no doctors are accepting new patients. Dr. Kathy Dabrus of the Victoria Division of Family Practice, a local family doctor for 28 years, said many factors contribute to the shortage. In some cases, doctors who have done a family-practice
Alistair MacGregor MEMBER OF PARLIAMENT COWICHAN-MALAHAT-LANGFORD
Here to Serve You! We can help you with: Íť /žžĹ?Ĺ?ĆŒÄ‚Ć&#x;ŽŜ ĂŜĚ Ĺ?Ć&#x;ÇŒÄžĹśĆ?ĹšĹ?Ɖ ƉƉůĹ?Ä?Ä‚Ć&#x;ŽŜĆ? Íť sĹ?Ć?Ĺ?ĆšĹ˝ĆŒ sĹ?Ć?Ä‚Ć? ĂŜĚ ĂŜĂĚĹ?Ä‚Ĺś WÄ‚Ć?Ć?Ć‰Ĺ˝ĆŒĆšĆ? Íť žƉůŽLJžĞŜƚ /ĹśĆ?ĆľĆŒÄ‚ĹśÄ?Äž Íť /ĹśÄ?ŽžĞ dĂdžĞĆ? ĂŜĚ KĆšĹšÄžĆŒ &ÄžÄšÄžĆŒÄ‚ĹŻ dĂdžĞĆ? ĂŜĚ ĞŜĞĎƚĆ? Íť ĂŜĂĚĂ WĞŜĆ?Ĺ?ŽŜ WĹŻÄ‚Ĺś ĂŜĚ KĹŻÄš Ĺ?Äž ^ÄžÄ?ĆľĆŒĹ?ƚLJ Íť sÄžĆšÄžĆŒÄ‚ĹśĆ? ÄŤÄ‚Ĺ?ĆŒĆ? ĂŜĚ DĹ˝ĆŒÄž ŽŜƚĂÄ?Ćš žLJ ŽĸÄ?Äž Ä¨Ĺ˝ĆŒ Ä‚Ĺś appointment!
/DQJIRUG 2IÂżFH % +DSS\ 9DOOH\ 5G (PDLO DOLVWDLU PDFJUHJRU#SDUO JF FD 3KRQH
residency as part of their training choose other options. “What we’re noticing is it has been a shifting environment in terms of the type of work that a graduate of family medicine has options for,� Dabrus said. “Some examples are staffing walk-in clinics or urgentcare clinics, some of them are in our hospitalist program.� Dabrus said 70 people in the Victoria area are hospital-based doctors, working with specialists, families, mental-health staff and others. Hospitalists have taken on the family doctor’s former role of attending to patients in a hospital setting, while earning about onethird more than a family doctor. Along with that, running a practice includes overhead such as the cost of staff and office space, Dabrus said. “There’s a fair bit of responsibility to run a business,� she said. “It really is a major commitment to go into family practice, and what the grads are seeing are more options with better pay and less stress. “The Division of Family Practice has done their best with saying: ‘We will assist you setting up a business. We will assist you with
Dr. Kathy Dabrus.
understanding the business of family practice.’� Also contributing to the difficulty of keeping doctors in Victoria is the cost of housing, Dabrus said, explaining that medical graduates are in high demand and can easily go elsewhere. Less expensive communities tend to have fewer problems, she said. “In the Cowichan Valley, we don’t see the same sort of doctor shortage as we do in Victoria. In the Cowichan Valley, every person who wants a family doctor has a family doctor.� About 325 doctors with family practices are in Greater Victoria, Dabrus said. “We’ve had 22 new physicians over the last year, but certainly we’ve had more than that in the amount of retirements.� The provincial government has responded by increasing the number of first-year undergraduate medical seats in B.C. to 288 from 128 in 2003, and is working on a new model for care tailored to individual communities. CP
86 | Capital PROGRESS
CapPROGRESS_2017_FINAL.indd 86
4/11/17 9:54:46 AM