"No quick fix for Canada's shortage of doctors"

[Guest Ian Wong]

Here's an article published a couple of days ago by the Vancouver sun. It talks about "a decrease in physician to population ratios for every year to the year 2021" in rural and remote areas. If that quotation means that the physician supply to rural and remote areas today is as good as it is going to ever be until the year 2021, then we have a truly frightening future.

 

Granted, I wonder just how well-designed this study was (I'm going to go look for it now), but this just speaks to continued turmoil and unpredictability within our health care system as far as physician supply goes.

 

Ian

 

 

www.canada.com/news/story...03A046279}

 

No quick fix in sight for Canada's shortage of doctors, study finds

 

DENNIS BUECKERT

Canadian Press

Wednesday, March 19, 2003

 

OTTAWA (CP) - Residents of small towns and rural areas will have even fewer doctors to call on in coming years, says a federally financed study.

 

Urban areas may also experience access problems, says the study by a task force of the Canadian Medical Forum, comprised of executives from major medical organizations. "All scenarios of physician supply in rural and remote areas of Canada . . . point to a decrease in physician to population ratios for every year to the year 2021," says the study.

 

It cites data showing the proportion of physicians working in small towns and rural areas declined to 9.8 per cent in 1996 from 14.9 per cent in 1991.

 

Canada has 2.1 doctors per 1,000 population - about a quarter less than the average of 2.8 for other leading industrialized countries. Statistics Canada has reported that millions of Canadians can't find a family doctor.

 

The task force is to recommend a long-term strategy in its final report due September 2005, said co-chair Michel Brazeau.

 

"We are not in this to provide some rapid, miraculous cures because we don't think there are any," said Brazeau, CEO of the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons.

 

"We're in this for the longer haul. We've got a mandate which is for approximately 3½ years to develop the strategies that are required."

 

Doctor shortages have been blamed in part on government-imposed cuts at medical schools in the budget-slashing 1990s. Enrolments are now being boosted, but the demand-supply balance in coming years remains uncertain.

 

"While the overall ratio may remain the same, there are many individual regions and disciplines . . . where the physician to population ratio will worse," says the study.

 

Brazeau said the factors determining the supply and demand for medical services are too complex to be resolved through a simple head count or physician-population ratio.

 

"We have to look beyond getting ourselves trapped in such situations, we have to do better."

 

Factors in the doctor shortage include:

 

- A decline in the number of foreign doctors coming to Canada.

 

- Aging of the work force.

 

- Uneven distribution of doctors.

 

- An increasing proportion of female doctors who tend to work fewer hours.

 

- More medical students choosing specialization over general practice.

 

There is also a general trend among doctors to seek a better balance between work and leisure time, says the study.

 

"Doctors are strongly considering reducing their hours of patient practice or have already done so, for lifestyle reasons."

 

Patients are becoming more demanding and the distinction between demand and need is blurring, says the study.

 

It suggests a national strategy is needed instead of the current approach in which each province and territory tries to work on its own. However, it suggests no mechanism for developing such a strategy.