Fixing family doctor gap isn't a priority for N.L. government, says head of medical association
New poll estimates 163,000 people are without a family doctor
A new poll finds 30 per cent of people in Newfoundland and Labrador are without a family doctor, and the head of the medical association says the provincial government is dropping the ball in its attempts to reduce that number.
The poll, commissioned by the Newfoundland and Labrador Medical Association and carried out by Narrative Research, says about one-third — or approximately 163,000 people — do not have a family doctor.
"The truth is too many people don't have access to family physicians. Not enough is being done to address this," said NLMA president Steve Major.
"And I don't think that it's a priority for the government to have every Newfoundlander have a family physician. I think that's the honest truth."
A decade ago, the NLMA found that 11 per cent of the province did not have access to a family doctor. Major called the steep uptick in recent years unacceptable.
The provincial government says it's addressing the shortage with family-care teams, but Major says that hasn't changed the situation on the ground — adding that virtual services like Fonemed or Teledoc simply don't compare with the quality of care patients receive from an assigned general practitioner.
"They're not getting the quality of care that they deserve," said Major.
Major also said the province imposed the collaborative care model on the province without consulting with heath-care providers.
"One size doesn't fit all. And as a community-based physician, I provide good care in the community. I don't have to be part of a team. I could have access to a team, but these models aren't actually necessarily functioning as a team currently," he said.
Major said the provincial government has to decide if it wants family physicians to be the primary caregivers for patients.
"If they don't change the way things are, we will see a continued erosion — where family physicians leave this province to go elsewhere to work, and that we have a higher percentage of the population [who] have adverse and negative outcomes and die because they're not getting the care that they deserve."
Rural N.L. in crisis
Major said he's currently meeting with physicians across Newfoundland and Labrador, and the crisis over access to doctors is even worse in rural areas, where patients often need to travel long distances for medical attention. In one case, he says, a patient who had a heart attack in Bonavista was sent to Carbonear for treatment.
"We're in this situation where decisions that are made that negatively affect patients because we've come to accept a crisis," he said.
He also suggested physicians have been disenfranchised from the system through the amalgamation of the health authorities.
"They're in a position where they feel vulnerable. That they can't speak out against the health authority for fear of losing their job, fear of losing their privilege," he said.
Polling not whole picture
In July, Major told CBC News that 175,000 people in N.L. were without doctors. The NLMA's new poll suggests a slightly improved scenario for the province, but because it was based on a sample, it still doesn't paint the whole picture, Major says.
"We know polling isn't fully accurate. What we've seen, though, is consistently ... numbers between 25 and 30 per cent. The numbers that we actually get in terms of how many physicians are being recruited and retained in the province are very hard to measure."
The medical association has pushed the province to provide exact statistics, but Major said they haven't been provided.
According to the Health Department, as of September there are 50,380 Newfoundlanders and Labradorians registered on Patient Connect N.L., a provincial list of individuals who self-identify whether they have access to "primary care" as opposed to a family doctor.
However, Major said another survey the medical association carried out found that 60 per cent of the public didn't know about Patient Connect.
"The problem is that in the data, you can manipulate it. The truth is we have asked the government to have a health and human resource plan since 2018 that says how many physicians we need in every part of this province," he said.
Despite asking for a plan for six years, he said one hasn't been provided to the NLMA.
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With files from Mark Quinn