No, because we don’t use the ones we have
I’m often asked if attracting new doctors to Ontario is the key to putting an end to wait times and hallway medicine. I reply, “It’s complicated” — and it is — which proves once again that our health care system is not only inefficient, it’s downright inexplicable.
Consider this: in Ontario, some patients will wait months for a surgical consultation and years for the surgery itself.
So imagine their shock when I tell them that not only are there empty operating rooms, but there are surgeons who cannot find work in this province because of government cuts.
This is where the anger kicks in. Doctors can’t work. Patients can’t receive care. Previous investments sit wasted. Wash, rinse and repeat. This is what happens when government underfunds our health system. How can anyone tell how many more physicians we must recruit, when we don’t even use the ones we have? Compared to other countries, Ontario is below average when it comes to the number of working doctors.
In fact, there are towns in northern Ontario where they only have half the doctors they really need, and Indigenous communities are completely understaffed.
Yet some new graduates are now unable to find placements coming out of medical school. Last year, there were 68. This year, there are 222. They hang in limbo, unable to take the final step toward becoming a doctor, while patients wait to get care.
This is also because of government cuts. Our population is growing older. Right now, one in six Ontarians is a senior. In 20 years, it will be one in four. We all know that as people get older, they have more chronic diseases — diabetes, heart disease, high blood pressure and so on. They need more care.
One in13 Ontarians has no family doctor. This is a disaster in the making; we saw this back in the Rae Days. Family doctors are uniquely trained to deal with complex, multi-illness patients. They are irreplaceable. They often work in team environments with nurse practitioners, physician assistants and nurses, but those teams were also cut by the government.
Our health care system is under strain. If the government does not act today, it will force patients into an untenable position down the road.
So what doctor would pick our health care system as their destination of choice?
A province where funding is clawed back and cut in between election cycles is a tough sell. Not only that, but many of my colleagues feel targeted by the government.
Throughout the federal tax changes last summer, Finance Minister Bill Morneau tried to paint doctors as greedy. Meanwhile, the provincial government cut physician funding for six straight years. None of us went into medicine for the money. I became a doctor to help people who were sick and struggling. But I have to pay for my clinic, staff and medical equipment to do my job — the job I love, the job that is my calling — properly.
The inability to provide patients the care they deserve — the wait times, the hallway medicine, the long hours — takes its toll on doctors. It’s gotten so bad that doctors feel like they’re fighting a battle on two fronts: caring for our patients in their time of need, and pushing back against government cuts to the health care system.
We need all hands on deck. We need to put all of our doctors to work. Only then can we figure out how many more are needed. I look at the patients around the province waiting to see a doctor and I’m angry.
You can draw a straight line from the decisions the government makes to the care patients get.
The election campaign is heating up. When the politicians come knocking on your door, ask them how exactly will they help you find a doctor when you need one. How will they help you get the care that you need now, not a year from now?
Because for all the election promises and photo ops, Kathleen Wynne’s Liberals did not use the word “doctor” once in their budget.
Compared to other countries, Ontario is below average when it comes to the number of working doctors, Nadia Alam writes