Family doctor crisis could be helped by these key fixes, report says
Global News
The new report is based on a survey with more than 9,000 people across Canada who talked about their experiences with primary care and how to fix it.
A new report says patients across Canada see more primary health-care teams, access to their own electronic records and faster licensing of foreign-trained physicians as key ways to solve the country’s family doctor shortage crisis.
Researchers at St. Michael’s Hospital in Toronto surveyed more than 9,000 people online and had in-person discussions with dozens more across Canada to talk about their experiences with primary care and how to fix it.
Lead researcher Dr. Tara Kiran says more than one in five people across Canada do not have access to a family doctor or nurse practitioner they can see regularly.
Kiran says researchers spoke to diverse groups of people from both urban and rural Canada, as well as patients from different ethnic backgrounds and people with disabilities, about what the health-care standard should be.
She says across the board, all agreed there should be guaranteed access to primary care for everyone living in Canada.
Kiran says she hopes federal, provincial and territorial governments will listen to what patients want and use their feedback to reform the primary-care system.
“If you are in a position of any power … I hope those people use the standard kind of as a North Star to say, ‘OK, well, we’re wanting to change the system. We’re going to introduce reforms. Let’s use this. Let’s make sure that these reforms are in alignment with what people said was important to them,'” said Kiran, who is a family doctor and scientist with the MAP Centre for Urban Health Solutions at St. Michael’s Hospital.
The findings were published online on Monday, in the “Our Care” report.
