Kitchener man’s five-year search for a family doctor for his mom
KITCHENER - Frank McQuade has been struggling to find his mom a family doctor for the past five years.
Her doctor retired, leaving 74-year-old Barbara in search of a replacement.
She has a new rheumatologist that will refill some of the prescriptions, but it's a nightmare," said McQuade, a Kitchener resident, adding that his mom has several conditions including lupus, epilepsy and high blood pressure.
McQuade's mom is one of 2.2 million Ontarians without a family doctor, according to Inspire Primary Health Care. This is up from 1.8 million in 2020.
In Waterloo Region, at least 64,900 residents are without a family doctor.
The Ontario College of Family Physicians, which represents thousands of family physicians in Ontario, is pushing for the province to fund updated digital systems and support teams to help with the provincial shortage.
Dr. Mekalai Kumanan is the president of the college and has been a practising family doctor in Cambridge for 14 years.
Kumanan said an all hands on deck" approach is needed to improve health care in a time where more are struggling to find a family doctor.
If the trend continues, that number could hit about three million people by 2025.
The Ministry of Health acknowledged that the family doctors shortage is an issue in the region, but noted that the provincial numbers differ from those reported by Inspire Primary Health Care. The ministry said 90 per cent of the province has a family doctor, which works out to about 1.45 million people without a family doctor.
The ministry did not respond to a request for up-to-date data.
According to provincial data from 2019, 94.9 per cent of people in the Waterloo-Wellington area who were 16 years old and older had a family doctor. This made this the area with the third-highest access in the province, behind North Simcoe-Muskoka and Hamilton-Niagara-Haldimand-Brant.
The Ontario College of Family Physicians recommends updating digital systems to ease the overwhelming administrative burden" for family doctors. Doctors spend an average of 19 hours per week on administrative tasks, according to the Ontario College of Family Physicians.
It is also calling for the hiring health care team members - nurses, social workers and dieticians - who can help free up doctors for more time with patients.
The reason this is beneficial is it allows the patient to access care from the right person at the right time," Kumanan said.
While walk-in clinics are an alternative, Kumanan said a family doctor has time to build trust with patients and learn more about their medical history.
When we're seeing our patient, we're also getting to know more about their family and often we're seeing generations within the same family, and so we're able to care for that patient in the context of their lives and families," she said
A walk-in clinic is a less-than-ideal option, due to long wait times, McQuade said, who has waited as long as 12 hours with his mom to see a doctor.
McQuade signed his mom up for the provincial Health Care Connect program, which is meant to match people up with doctors accepting patients, four years ago, to no avail.
Jenna Petker leads family doctor recruitment programs for the Greater Kitchener Waterloo Chamber of Commerce.
In November, 23 family medicine residents and six emergency residents toured the region and learned about local opportunities.
We are in significant need for more physicians in our community as we face population growth and increasing number of retirements," Petker wrote in an email, adding that she receives daily calls from people looking for a family doctor.
Reporters asked Premier Doug Ford and Health Minister Sylvia Jones about poor access to family doctors on Thursday, at an unrelated announcement in Cambridge.
Jones said the province is aiming to educate and graduate more doctors.
In late summer I issued a directive to the College of Physicians of Ontario, ensuring that internationally educated physicians would have their applications assessed and ultimately reviewed, and, if appropriate, approved and given a licence quickly," she said.
Ontario will allow doctors licensed in other provinces to come to Ontario and begin practising right away while they go through a certification process, she said.
The province is also increasing the number of residency spots for doctors in universities.
Clearly, we want to have physicians, clinicians be able to practise in the community of their choice in Ontario as quickly as possible," Jones said.
Ford said the province is working as quickly as possible to get more doctors in the field, citing the expansion of medical schools.
We want our students from Ontario to be in the medical schools, not students from around the world paying $100,000 taking their spots," he said.
Rather than shipping our kids off to Ireland or the Caribbean to go to medical school, because other students around the world have $100,000 to pay the universities, that's not fair. So that's coming to an end immediately."
The province also pledged to replace all old fax machines at all Ontario health care providers with digital communication systems within the next five years.
This will reduce risk of delays in diagnosis and treatment and make accessing health data more efficient, ministry spokesperson Hannah Jensen said.
While some people have suggested McQuade consider alternatives, such as looking for a doctor out of the region, he is taking another, lengthy route.
McQuade found a 35-page list of all the family doctors in the region, uncertain of who is accepting patients.
I have to go through them one at a time and call," he said.
With files from Jeff Outhit
Cheyenne Bholla is a Waterloo Region-based reporter at The Record. Reach her via email: cbholla@therecord.com