It's almost impossible to find a family doctor in Thunder Bay, Ont., as the data and this patient show

Krystal Shapland was diagnosed with breast cancer in June. At 48, she's determined to battle cancer and feels the odds of beating it are good — but finding a family doctor in Thunder Bay, Ont., is a fight she feels she can't win. 

Navigating the system without ongoing care from a family physician has been challenging. Shapland said she feels her chances of beating cancer have been diminished without ongoing, consistent care. 

She has relied on walk-in clinics for testing, diagnosis and referrals to surgery. Along the journey, she has waited in lines and re-explained her medical history each time she has seen a different practitioner. She said she has also ended up waiting for a surgeon a week longer than the clinical guidelines suggest. 

"It was a question of, 'Well, am I going to die? Is this going to be it for me?'" 

Shapland isn't the only Thunder Bay resident dealing with the lack of family physicians.

There are 188 doctors listed with the Ontario College of Physicians and Surgeons who specialize in family medicine and run a practice in Thunder Bay. Not all these practices are family medical clinics, and many practise at more than one place — the 188 doctors worked a total of 237 different positions. 

Since the registry is not always up to date, CBC News used the data to create a list of all the family medical clinics and called each one to determine how many family doctors practised there. By cross-referencing these data sets, CBC determined there were 84 active family physician roles filled at 16 primary-care clinics in the city. 

The doctor shortage across Ontario and Canada is well known, with the Ontario Medical Association's president at the time saying earlier this year: "We don't have enough family doctors in the system right now. Every patient in Ontario should have a family doctor."

But in Thunder Bay, which has a population of about 123,000, among the clinics offering family medicine, none had a single family doctor accepting new patients from the general public, according to the CBC News research.

There were 26 active family doctors who may accept new patients only on a case-by-case basis, such as people who are pregnant, elderly or are family members of current patients. 

Some family doctors in Thunder Bay serve specific populations. They include doctors at college, university or military health centres, and those in practices that solely serve citizens of First Nations. Four doctors in this category were accepting new patients, while six were accepting patients on a case-by-case basis. 

While there were no primary care doctors accepting new patients from the general public, there were multiple nurse practitioners (NPs) at different locations accepting new patients. 

NPs are registered nurses who have additional education and nursing experience that allow them to diagnose and treat illnesses, order and interpret tests, prescribe medications and perform medical procedures. However, NPs are not able to bill the Ontario Health Insurance Plan (OHIP) directly for services. Because of this, they need to be compensated by the clinics that employ them or charge patients for services. Some NP-led primary clinics are publicly funded, but there's only one in Thunder Bay. 

CBC News asked the Ontario Ministry of Health about the physician workforce data it collects for Thunder Bay. The ministry said in a statement that it doesn't have data on how many physicians are accepting new patients.