Someone call a doctor (if you can find one), because the healthcare system is in critical condition.
Driving the news: Canada is projected to be short 44,000 physicians by 2028, with family doctors accounting for 72% of the deficit, per a recent report by RBC Economics.
- This is particularly problematic in some of the country’s most remote areas: Per Angus Reid, one doctor in Wheatley, ON is servicing a town of 1,400 people.
Catch up: Finding a family doctor has become more difficult in recent years, and now roughly six million Canadian adults don’t have access to one—up from 4.6 million in 2019.
- Limited residency spots for medical students, a lack of professionals to evaluate prospective physicians, and funding shortfalls have all contributed to bottlenecks.
Why it matters: The doctor deficit not only makes it harder for you to find a family physician but “adds pressure to an already strained healthcare system,” per the report.
- Patients unable to find doctors head to emergency rooms instead. In the summer, Ontario hospitals closed overwhelmed ERs over 80 times, citing staffing shortages.
Meanwhile, foreign-trained doctors have been sidelined at both the federal and provincial levels (the latter regulates medical practices) as recruitment and retraining efforts lag behind.
- The federal government recently moved to streamline doctors’ paths to permanent residency, and some provinces are revamping evaluations for foreign-trained doctors.
Zoom out: Other provinces are raising pay (BC) for doctors or allowing them to practice across provincial borders (Ontario), but the changes are unlikely to make an impact in the short-term.