Hundreds of people looking for a family doctor lined up for hours Saturday morning at a health clinic in Ottawa’s west end.
The Active Care clinic in Kanata put out a call for new patients and said it could register 400 to 600 people, many of whom would be assigned a physician assistant (PA), according to a medical secretary at the clinic.
“We’ve been without a family doctor for about five years and it’s like a golden ticket that people come out with today. So we’re lining up to get one,” said Alison Boughey, who waited in line for almost four hours.
Boughey explained that she was left without a primary care provider in Ottawa after her primary care doctor moved to Trenton, Ont., a few hours away.
It was a story that came up several times among other people in line who had struggled to find a family doctor in the city.
Ontario has been experiencing a shortage of doctors since the COVID-19 pandemic.
The Ontario Medical Association (OMA) told CBC in an email that more than 2.5 million Ontarians “currently do not have access to a family doctor.”
The statement credited recent investments in primary care as a good start to addressing the problem, but added that ““The health care needs of the population continue to exceed available resources.”
According to an OMA fact sheet, Ontario is estimated to have 2.8 doctors per 1,000 people and 40 per cent of them are considering retirement.
“I currently have a family doctor, but he is closing his practice. I think in his letter he said he can’t take it anymore,” Rajual Chirammal said in the final hours of Saturday’s registration period.
“He will close the practice at the end of this month.”
Chirammal said he doesn’t know many people who have a family doctor, as most of his friends rely on Appletree Medical Center for care.
He said he and his wife, who joined the line at 6 a.m. while he stayed home with their children, couldn’t pass up Saturday’s opportunity.
Still, Chirammal said they will still have to wait three weeks before the clinic confirms there is a doctor or physician assistant for them.
‘That’s how it is’
Boughey said she estimated there were 250 people in front of her when she arrived around 8am.
He said the clinic’s voicemail indicated they were accepting new patients between 8 a.m. and noon Saturday, but he later discovered some people were waiting at 4:30 a.m.
“I hope they’re still accepting patients when I get to my house in the line out the door,” he said.
“I thought that coming to a big city it would be easy to get another doctor,” added Marlene Vieira, another applicant. “But I haven’t even been able to get on a waiting list anywhere.”
Vieira said he moved to Ottawa from Haliburton Highlands, just north of Peterborough, Ont. He said he hasn’t seen much difference compared to the rural area.
“YO“It’s been a wait,” Vieira said. “It would be nice to not have to do it, but that’s just the way it is.”
The secretary of the Active Care clinic, Belinda Manuel, said that they currently have around eight doctors and three PAs.
According to the Ontario government, personal assistants work alongside doctors to help reduce wait times and improve patient access to emergency medications.
They can perform physical exams, write referrals and prescribe certain medications, but they cannot prescribe narcotics, Manuel explained.
