Posted on 02/18/2005 9:09:37 AM PST by FormerACLUmember
Ontario's doctor shortage is taking a turn for the worse as the last six physicians in the town of Geraldton are quitting en masse, presenting another headache for Health Minister George Smitherman.
The move will leave the local hospital and thousands of patients with no physicians when the departures take effect in May — unless months of failed efforts to recruit replacement physicians suddenly pay off.
Losing its doctors will likely move Geraldton to the top of the list of about 140 cities and towns in the province officially designated by the government as being short of doctors. About 100 of those are in southern Ontario.
The Ontario Medical Association estimates one million Ontarians don't have family physicians and says that number is likely to grow with hundreds of doctors — many of them over 65 — within a few years of retiring.
The Geraldton crisis comes at an awkward time for Smitherman, whose ministry is embroiled in contract talks with doctors through the OMA, which has warned that the doctor shortage will grow worse without more incentives.
"We're sick at what this could mean for our patients," Dr. Saralaine Johnstone said in a phone interview yesterday from Geraldton, a community of 3,000 which is one of four towns amalgamated into the municipality of Greenstone, a three-hour drive north of Thunder Bay.
But long workdays, adding up to between 80 and 100 hours a week for the doctors staffing the Geraldton District Hospital, a community clinic and a satellite office in a nearby small town, have taken their toll, she added.
"There's a minimum number of physicians you need to be able to practise safely and the number dropped below that threshold. Eventually it does become unsafe for the physicians and the community."
Most of the doctors had signed on for three-year contracts in Geraldton and their time is up, Johnstone added, noting several want to spend more time with their families or to return to southern Ontario.
"We're not alone in this. This is something that many communities are facing," said Greenstone Mayor Michael Power, who was in Toronto for a meeting. "But when you have every doctor leaving (at the same time), that hits you really hard."
Geraldton residents learned of the pending departures in a notice published by the doctors in a local newspaper this week.
"Everyone's in a state of shock," Pat Larsen, who works at a car rental agency and has lived in Geraldton for 32 years, told the Star. "It's really, really devastating. There's so many seniors in our area and they need a lot of care."
Smitherman said his officials are trying to help Geraldton find replacement doctors. "The people of Geraldton will not be left abandoned," he vowed.
A short-term solution could involve luring doctors to Geraldton for temporary stints, known as locums. "This hospital is part of a five-hospital network, which means that there is other strength in the region that we can depend upon," Smitherman said.
NDP Leader Howard Hampton called that approach inadequate because the nearest communities with doctors — Hearst and Nipigon — are a two-hour drive away. He said the government's lack of a plan to attract more physicians is making Geraldton a "doctor ghost town."
"Physicians in a small northern community like Geraldton are typically quite overworked because they're almost always on call weekends and after hours ... They really take on huge responsibilities."
OMA president Dr. John Rapin said he talked to some of the Geraldton doctors yesterday and noted their contract makes them among the best paid in the province. They are part of a program designed to lure doctors to remote northern areas.
But it's not a matter of money — it's the hours they must put in unless more doctors can be recruited to share the load, added Rapin, an emergency room physician in Kingston. "Nobody's prepared to work to the death."
Conservative health critic John Baird (Nepean-Carleton) warned that Geraldton won't be the last community to lose its doctors.
"Geraldton is a microcosm of what Ontario will be like because of the failure of the McGuinty government to have a plan to retain and attract doctors in Ontario."
Smitherman said the government is taking steps to ease the doctor shortage, including offering a new contract that would make Ontario physicians the highest-paid in Canada.
The deal would boost their pay by about $1 billion over four years, with some physicians who work outside traditional office hours in remote areas getting hikes of up to 35 per cent.
""The Ontario Medical Association estimates one million Ontarians don't have family physicians""
ONTARIANS DON'T HAVE HEALTH CARE?! Canada should socialize the healthcare system,that would solve the problem. Socialization solves all problems.
oh wait- Canada's healthcare system is socialized. My BAD
I wonder what they get paid?
They may not have health care but I bet they all have health insurance.
As one of my heros, PJ O'Rourke, says: "If you think medical care is expensive now, wait until it is free."
Good assertion.
the doctors should be FORCED TO PRACTICE UNDER PENALTY OF LAW!!!
</sarcasm>
Canuckistan docs get paid about 50% of US doctors.
Does this mean Canadians will be sneaking into the US for *gasp* healthcare?
Good post, thanks for the info
Who is John Galt, M.D.?
Send Hillary over to study the problem.
Send those doctors to the US. We could use a few with balls like that.
70% of the population of the Peoples Republic of Canuckistan live within 50 miles of capitalist medical care... and use freely available services constantly!
Atlas is shrugging.
1 Million without a doctor has to be a very high % of the population.
McGuinty's government is too busy chasing down pit bulls to care.
They already do.
Oh, this one is easy.
Canada just needs to force the doctors to work there. Just threaten them with jail time.
Fits nicely into the existing system in Canada.
Its exactly what the Clintons had in mind.
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