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WHAT'S NEW
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Rx for the doctor shortage
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Five million Canadians are "orphan patients" -- unable to find a family physician to take care of them. If you've been stranded by our country's acute doctor shortage, here's how to ensure you get the best care you can -- under the circumstances.
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By Patricia Robertson
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Health in-sites
Susan Murray, the manager of consumer health information services for the Toronto Public Library, and Kimberley Meighan, of the Family Resource Centre at the Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto, recommend these websites for reliable health information. NOTE: The Internet is not a substitute
for seeing a health-care professional.
• Canadian Health Network
This bilingual site is best used as a general source of health information. It features public health updates and articles on prevention, active living, the environment and complementary and alternative health care. There is also a useful link on how to assess what is trustworthy information online.
• Women's Health Matters
This bilingual site developed by Sunnybrook and Women's College Health Sciences Centre is a great resource for women-oriented conditions such as bladder infections, arthritis, heart disease and breast cancer. It's also interactive so you can share information in a chatroom moderated by experts.
• AboutKidsHealth
This website is designed for parents and children and offers in-depth information on child health and development. It includes a pain resource centre and a great earache section with various causes, prevention tactics and, most importantly, when you should contact a doctor.
Operation: more MDs
What's really being done to alleviate the doctor shortage? Medical associations continue to lobby for more doctors to be trained, and some provincial governments have started to act. In Ontario the health minister has allocated $33 million in new funding for medical schools to create 141 new family residency positions this year. That's a good start toward making up the province's shortfall of 2,100 physicians. Ontario is also partly addressing the hurdles faced by foreign doctors seeking a licence to practise. International medical graduates (IMGs) have had their own special fast-track program, IMG-Ontario, since June 2004. That year, 165 IMGswere accepted into assessment and training positions.
In Alberta, B.C. and Ontario, "hospitalist" programs hire full-time MDs at hospitals to take responsibility for orphan patients, out of town patients and patients whose doctors can't oversee their care while they're in hospital. These well-received programs represent an innovative response to the family doctor shortage.
And at the municipal level, one grassroots campaign was very successful. An informal 2002 study conducted in the city of Kemptville, Ont., south of Ottawa, found that 40 per cent of patients who used their emergency ward didn't have a family doctor. The municipality allocated $300,000 and, with the support of other key community members, mounted an aggressive recruitment campaign. They've attracted five new physicians in two years.
Dr. Eric Wooltorton, a family physician in Kemptville, says that the resources he's been given, along with new technology such as video-conference tools and electronic record-keeping, makes Kemptville a hot destination for new doctors. "At the hospital, we've gone from admitting three to five patients without doctors to one or even none per night when on call. Kemptville made health care a priority in their community, and it worked."
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