P.E.I.'s new agreement on doctor workloads gets pushback from family physicians
CBC
Family doctors in Prince Edward Island say the latest agreement on how many patients physicians should handle will drive some out of them out of the province.
The agreement between the Medical Society of P.E.I., the provincial Department of Health and Wellness and Health P.E.I. was announced in December. It focused on workloads and targets for doctors, allowing some to have fewer patients.
The three parties considered the agreement to be a win at the time — but the P.E.I. College of Family Physicians did not.
The college laid out its concerns in a letter this week, saying the workloads could have a negative impact on patient care.
In the letter, college president Dr. Trina Stewart said 77 per cent of doctors who responded to a recent survey believe the new agreement will drive doctors away from the province and that many were considering changes to their practice that would impact access to care.
“PEICFP recognizes the efforts by all parties to develop the [agreement] and is hopeful that the feedback provided by family doctors will be received in a meaningful way to inform and improve implementation,” Stewart is quoted as saying in a news release.
“I, along with the college, remain a willing partner to provide perspective on future family medicine policy and process and encourage the inclusion of frontline family doctors in these discussions.”
Last year, the medical society entered mediation with the province and Health P.E.I. over the operational guidelines for family doctors’ workloads.
A new Physician Services Agreement, which took effect in April 2025, included key performance indicators that set out a requirement that each family doctor see 24 patients a day, based on an average appointment being 15 minutes long.
Health P.E.I. also wanted a full-time family physician to have 1,600 people on their patient roster, although CEO Melanie Fraser later insisted that was a maximum number, not a minimum as the society understood the phrasing.
The agreement reached in December sets out more flexible models for how many patients family doctors can and should handle, and gave physicians a deadline of Jan. 31 to decide on their patient loads.
The college said it got responses to its survey from 62 family doctors, many of whom are considering changes to their practice, including reducing their full-time status, cutting back on how many patients they see and their teaching commitments — or leaving P.E.I. entirely.
Doctors also want Health P.E.I. to better understand all the extra work they do, like teaching, home visits and providing palliative care. The college said it wants the elimination or reduction of administrative work that could overburden health-care staff.
The college's letter calls on the medical society, Health P.E.I. and the provincial government to extend the deadline to let doctors decide how many patients they want to take on.
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