When Jennie Passche gets sick, she is in a competition to receive attention.
The 65 -year -old woman in Esquimalt, on the island of Vancouver de BC, says she has to get up early to call the primary and urgent care center of her community, which she opened in 2021 to provide care on the same day and relieve the shortage of a family doctor.
But by the time he arrives, he says, it is usually too late.
“It simply seems so desperate. What will happen to me? Who am I going to see?”
Passche was participating in a call segment on CBC’s BC today destined to mark a milestone for the province: 1,001 new family care doctors hired in the last two years after the changes made in the province’s payment model, and a record number of residents, 250,000, attached to some type of primary care provider.
The doctors of the BC Professional Association say that a new payment model is successfully bringing doctors to the province and linking them with patients. Dr. Charlene Lui, president of the group, says that since the model was implemented in 2023, more than 1,000 doctors have come to the province, helping almost 250,000 people to obtain family doctors.
The people they call share their struggles
But as telephone lines revealed, many more still look for attention desperately.
A person calling said that he goes to events where first aid are established and asks for his pulse to be reviewed, just to have a peace of mind on his health.
Another said that he has a two -year -old boy who has never seen a doctor outside to obtain basic vaccines.
Those stories, Dr. Tahmeena Ali said, are “heartbreaking” and very common.
“I see those struggles,” said Ali, former president of BC family doctors, to presenter Michelle Eliot.
He said that when he works the hospital shifts, he meets people with delayed diagnoses, even for serious diseases such as cancer, “because they were simply touched by cinema” without access to continuous care.
Ali says that while recent changes and new employees are encouraging, there is still a long way to go.
According to the BC Ministry of Health, there are still approximately 400,000 people who are still waiting for a family doctor, which means that more than 4,000 more would need to be hired using the current proportions of the patients.
From the perspective of Dr. Ali, “that is simply not possible.” Instead, he said, there must be a complete rethinking of a medical care system based on the notion that each person in the country can have regular access to a family doctor.
Instead, he said, must focus more on team care, where a doctor complements with other care professionals, such as practical nurses, pharmacists or councilors.
BC today23:40Family doctor hiring
BC Family Doctors says that 1,000 new doctors have been hired as a result of accelerated credential programs and a new payment model for family doctors. Dr. Tahmeena Ali, of the organization, BC, family doctors analyzes the shortage of a family doctor of the state of the province.
The ‘possible attention’ clinic
In an email, the BC Ministry of Health said that this Council is taking seriously as part of a transformation that began in 2018. In addition to recruiting family doctors, it has given more power to practicing nurses to see patients and establish primary care networks, health centers and urgent and primary care centers to dispatch the need for family doctors.
He said he is updating how he calculates the patient’s demand as a result of these changes, and that the new forecasts “should be available in the coming months.
Ali said that while those are positive steps, they extend unequally around the province. For those in a community with a solid primary care network, “you have reached the fat prize,” he said.
But for those without one, or without one large enough to meet the need, “they stay in the dark, so we have a higher level of inequality.”
That the discrepancy was reflected in the calls received by BC todayeven among those who did not have a family doctor. Receiving particularly mixed reviews were primary and urgent care centers, established in 2018 to obtain non -emergency care for people without access to a family doctor.
For Mike Ranfft, 69, from Saanich, the system has been helpful since it received after care after knee surgery.
“Every time I have seen a different doctor, but each doctor has been extremely professional, and they have no problem reading the notes of a previous doctor who looked at me,” he said.
But Bob Williams, 74, from Kamloops, said that for him and his wife, trying to reserve an appointment was an exercise of frustration.
“Urgent and primary attention should be called ‘possible attention’ because it cannot be passed,” he said.
Even some of those who have left the waiting list still face problems.
Chris Adamache de Saanich says that his family was able to stick to a clinic of attention with a practicing nurse after receiving a advice from another family member who managed to sign them.
More than six million Canadians do not have a family doctor, but there are ongoing efforts to change that. Heather Gillis of CBC breaks down some of the key strategies that the provinces and territories are using to try to cure the primary care crisis.
But even now, he says, he meets when someone is sick because the waiting time is two to three weeks.
“Any ailment we have left a long time ago,” he said.
Ali says that it is a symptom of a system that expects doctors to see more patients than in one day, and said that just continuing on that path would be similar to driving on roads built for horses and buggies.
And although I was hoping recent improvements, he said that a lot of work will be needed to get to a place where everyone can be treated properly.
“It took us years to enter this situation,” he said. “It will take years to dig.”
