They began to arrive and the line began to form, already at 2 in the morning.
Despite the constant snowfall and bone-chilling cold, they stayed outside and waited their turn, hours before the doors opened at 10am.
This wasn’t a line to buy Taylor Swift concert tickets at a kiosk in downtown Toronto.
This line was outside a Royal Canadian Legion office in Walkerton, Ontario, and was for something much more coveted in Canada’s beleaguered healthcare system: the chance to get your name on a family doctor’s patient list. .
When daylight came and the doors opened at the temporary registration office set up at the Legion on Wednesday, the line stretched around the block.
“This is not what it should be,” said Dr. Paul McArthur, a local doctor who is part of the search team to attract a new doctor to Walkerton. “The response we have had shows that we have a provincial problem that is big.”
Last week, word spread that Dr. Mitchell Currie was looking for patients for a new family medicine practice for the town of about 5,000 in Bruce County, a three-hour drive northwest of Toronto.
‘We all feel like we’ve won the lottery’
There were only 500 places available and Pam Cussen managed to get one of them.
“We all feel like we’ve won the lottery,” he said. “Who would have thought it would come to this when looking for a doctor in Canada?”
Jacqueline Simoes also arrived early to join the list. He has been without a doctor since his doctor retired eight years ago.
Simoes found out about the registration through a Facebook post and did not hesitate to queue, even though it meant staying outside in -10C cold.
“I thought with today’s weather there definitely wouldn’t be that many people,” he said. “The fact that there are so many of my neighbors and friends who don’t have a family doctor says a lot about our health care system.”
Those who joined the line had stories that differed in details but shared some common themes.
Like Simoes, many had gone years without a family doctor and were desperate to get on the list for one.
Nearly all spoke of having to endure long waits in local hospital emergency departments for something as simple as refilling a prescription. Many felt guilty about consuming resources on intensive care, but with few doctors seeing new patients and access to walk-in clinics limited in rural areas, they felt they had no choice.
Others spoke of difficulties obtaining necessary surgeries or referrals to specialists without first being under the care of a primary care doctor.
Rural areas suffer especially for family doctors
Rula Smith, a senior, stood in line while her husband had to wait in the car because he couldn’t navigate the icy streets.
“I can’t bring him here in a wheelchair,” she said. “Everyone is so desperate for a doctor that this is what we’re willing to do to try to get one.”
An increasing number of Canadians do not have access to a primary care doctor, especially in rural areas.
Dr. Dominik Nowak, a family physician and president of the Ontario Medical Association (OMA), said it’s shameful that people have to stay outside in the winter just to have a chance to find a doctor. In an interview with CBC News, Nowak pointed to OMA research that suggests one in four people in Ontario do not have a family doctor.
What we really need is a province-wide plan to get people the care they need in Ontario.– Dr. Dominik Nowak, OMA President
It is creating intense competition among communities to attract doctors to their communities and to get people on their patient lists, on the rare occasion that a new doctor comes to town.
“We are seeing a Hunger Games across Ontario, with communities essentially fighting for family doctors and other doctors,” Nowak said, referring to the dystopian novel where people from different regions fight to the death until one survives.
“This is not sustainable – it pits communities against each other. What we really need is a province-wide plan to get people the care they need in Ontario.”
According to the College of Family Physicians of Ontario, 2.5 million people do not have a family doctor, up from 1.8 million in 2020.
“People are using the emergency department as a gateway to the health care system, and that is not a sustainable place,” Nowak said.
The Ontario government has taken steps to address the physician shortage, particularly in rural areas:
But as Wednesday’s scene in Walkerton illustrates, demand for family doctors far outstrips supply.
When registration closed at 2 pm ET, the list of 500 patients had been completed and 500 more names were on the waiting list.
