Data show millions of Ontarians without family doctors — and many more potentially on the way
Eliot Frymire is part of a research group that investigates and analyzes primary care in Ontario. Using OHIP billing information, the researchers painstakingly drill down into postal code-based data to find out how many people have a regular source of primary care, what type of care they're getting, and where they're getting it.As of last year, 2.5 million Ontarians — 16 per cent of the population — didn't have regular access to primary care.
"There is a crisis in primary care, not only in Ontario, but across Canada," said Frymire, who stressed that while his group, Inspire-PHC, is funded by Ontario's Ministry of Health, it's completely independent.Not all primary care is the same, Frymire noted. An "attached" patient, as Inspire-PHC defines them, might be getting regular primary care from a community health centre, walk-in clinic or another source.
She said patients will be rostered to team-based care, like Philpott's Periwinkle model, which was recently deployed in Kingston. Rostered patients are taken care of by a single family doctor or care team that's funded by the province for each patient. "If a child has a learning disability or if they have autism, we need to diagnose those things early, because the sooner we start treating them, the bigger of a difference it makes for the rest of their lives. When children have a particular illness, there is a window of opportunity where the right treatment can have maximum impact," he said.
"Comprehensive family physicians, the numbers per capita have not kept up with population growth," Frymire said.Of the 2.5 million "uncertainly attached" patients, over 700,000 have had at least one primary care visit in the past two years, meaning they're getting looked after wherever they can.Almost 1.8 million Ontarians in that group aren't receiving any kind of primary care — not even for a walk-in visit for a sore throat.
A report, which the Liberals said was leaked to them by a concerned health-sector source, details the number of people in each Ontario municipality who are rostered to a family doctor and the number of rostering physicians who are close to retirement age. The data came from the Ministry of Health, the party said.
Several aging family doctors have spoken about the challenges of finding successors. Wanting to retire but unwilling to leave their hundreds of patients without primary care, some work well into old age. Drummond said he'd be happy to work until he's 80 but is planning to retire next year to appease his wife.
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