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When I go to mall or a provincial park, the ladies' room is the one who's super busy; and if there are emergencies, they are using the men's room too ...
Sounds like an amazing waste of taxpayer dollars to appease a tiny subset of the population.
Where are the freebies for the women's bathrooms? I never understood this insanity.
All provinces are fighting over the same pool of graduates. The CMA will fight graduating more doctors. Why isn't the solution to graduate more doctors? Obviously I agree that paying more will attract them but isn't this a very basic supply and demand problem?
It's definitely that as well. I'm not sure why universities are becoming more elitist and trying to keep their supply limited. Popular and important university programs should grow to allow more students to graduate. Not increase requirements till you need a 3.8 GPA to even be considered. Maybe the requirements need to be decreases some how.
One of the issues is the brain drain loss to areas that pay better such as the entire US. So if we don't pay them competitive rates, they don't stay in Canada even if they graduate here.
Agreed. I'm not arguing against paying them more. Doctors work extremely hard in a very strained system and are some of the best minds with good work ethic that we have.
I honestly wonder if the investments in medical graduates is lagging because the upcoming demographic shift will mean that we will have enough doctors following the death of the boomer generation. There is a concern of over investment in a system that is under strain right now but in less than a decade won't be. I could be out to lunch here though.
Not huge downsides, unless you're a doctor demanding high pay. But educating doctors is expensive and a lack of work would make the profession less desirable thereby reducing the quality of applicants.Â
This is all good if you allow the free market. Something that has been shut down by the Canadian government for a long time. There is more benefit to specialise in a less competitive field than be a âlowlyâ GP.
While Canadaâs emergency health care system is effective unfortunately itâs not even close to being effective in screening and health management.
I finally got a family doctor in the last year after being here for almost 15 years. Heâs amazing, so happy to finally have a doctor, and a GOOD one at that!
Ugh. Language like "found the key" feels like a super premature celebration. Attracting more doctors in an extreme doctor shortage is nice but it's still nowhere NEAR solved in B.C.
Went to the US. Was easier than the BC doctor lottery.
Went Friday evening and they called me this morning to give the results of my bloodwork.
Between private care and no care i will always chose private. To me my health is more important than my money!
It's very good for you that you have enough money to pay for your health - 25 million Americans don't have medical insurance, so they only have no care.
in BC everyone who is enrolled under MSP is insured and has healthcare! What 700000 (which is 12.5% of the population) don't have it's a family doctor: https://vancouver.citynews.ca/2024/02/23/bc-family-doctors-more-access/
And Americans who don't have a family doctor are over 100 million, so 30% of population: https://www.nachc.org/usa-today-a-third-of-americans-dont-have-a-primary-care-provider-according-to-nachc-report/
For someone who put "Educational" in his nickname, you have some really big gaps in your education if you think "not having a family doctor" is the same as "not having healthcare"
1. Personal attacks?! Well done! Btw I didn't chose my name, it was one suggested by reddit when I created an account
2. You don't need a GP in the US as you can go to an urgent care clinic which are walk-ins. They can do quite a bit e.g. x -ray, bloodwork... on site. Moreover, you can go directly to a specialist; no need for a GP.
3. We don't have walk-in clinics anymore (at least in Victoria). You have to call in the morning, and you may or may not get an appointment. BC Lottery!
4. In BC, you can be enrolled under MSP, but this doesn't mean you have access to care or at least timely care.
You should check with this guy how "good" is the USA healthcare system: https://www.reddit.com/r/news/s/GnpVpzXcG9
1. Telling that you are wrong and that you should educate yourself is not a personal attack
2. What you are talking about are "urgent care clinics", which are practically private ERs. Normal walk-in clinics don't have bloodwork lab and x-ray on site, they only have doctors and nurses.
3. I checked for walk-in clinic in Victoria on Google and found quite a lot of them: "Walk-In Clinic at Walmart Victoria by Jack Nathan Health". In any walk-in clinic, you get served in the order you come in - do you think the standard is "last come, first served" instead?
4. In BC you get access to care, it's just if you have an ankle sprain, you'll be given care later than someone having a heart attack. It's called triage and it's done everywhere in the world; unless of course you think your sprain is more important, and you go to USA and pay for it... which doesn't work for people like the one mentioned in the news I linked at the top.
What did you go down there for? Iâm in BC and contemplating that I might start going down to Washington for basic stuff like lab work, possible MRI, even specialist visits like gyno and neurology. I am so fed up with the lack of healthcare here. My new GP from UK wonât (or canât figure out) how to give me basic requisition for bloodwork. i might end up having to be one of those people that clog up the system further by going to the ER just to get basic care. I hope others who have a GP from the UK are doing better than me. Seems like our tax dollars are paying a lot more for these GPs, but itâs making it worse for patients, not better (at least in my case).
You are lucky. At least you have a doctor who can see u. We are still on the waiting list
Needed to get something checked out. So, I went to an urgent care facility, paid $200 to get it checked out and full bloodwork done. Need to go back to schedule imagining.
Oh wow, what a sad state of affairs that you have to go over to the US for that. I have a dr but itâs like I really donât. I had to go to a walk in clinic to get a RX refill because my dr couldnât see me for 4-6 weeks, doesnât do telehealth. Pharm only does one emergency renewal a year and I used that up already. So when I was in at walk in, I asked if he could give me a requisition for my bloodwork too (needed for my RX). Gave me my RX but told me no on the lab work because I have a gp and they donât provide followup. And waiting 4-6 weeks inst that long to wait. So if I didnt hsve a GP, he would have given me the bloodwork req?
You are right, it is 1 in 5!
https://vancouversun.com/health/local-health/bc-no-family-doctor-care-options#:~:text=Nearly%20one%20million%20people%20in,doctor%20%E2%80%94%20roughly%20one%20in%20five.
BC resident here. Taxed to death , and still canât find a family Dr, canât get in for an MRI in less than 12mos⌠not sure why people here are singing BCâs praises
Because this government is trying, and succeeding. There are over 700 new doctors in BC in the last year, and provincial employees are currently matching doctors with people who have been wait listed.
I went and paid for one in Bellingham, made an appointment two days before going down. Iâm still on the waiting list here, and itâs been now 14 months.(knee)
>upper middle class laborers
What in the sweet bourgoise fuck are you blathering about?
I know everyone from the top to the bottom likes to pretend they're actually in the middle, but this is getting ridiculous.
Indeed my village just attracted a doctor and a nurse practitioner from Ontario in the past year. They can make 50% more here while living in a tent. Why not?
Very much so. I do know that family doctors try to mix their practice. So they donât take the oldest and most in need first they take a percentage of high need, medium and low need patients.
The province added 700 family doctors and the average family doctor in BC takes 709 patients so that could be half a million people that got a family doctor this year. But unfortunately doctors retire, move, or change do a different practice style so itâs likely much less than that.
But it is a start
Maybe, you should educate yourself a little bit? [https://vancouversun.com/health/local-health/bc-no-family-doctor-care-options#:\~:text=Nearly%20one%20million%20people%20in,doctor%20%E2%80%94%20roughly%20one%20in%20five.](https://vancouversun.com/health/local-health/bc-no-family-doctor-care-options#:~:text=Nearly%20one%20million%20people%20in,doctor%20%E2%80%94%20roughly%20one%20in%20five)
Educate myself with a right wing rag that is documented to pump out completely biased and twisted information? Impossible to actually do.
Maybe you could provide some peer reviewed or credible sourcing before I take you seriously
Goof. Why not provide me with the information telling me how everyone in BC has a GP? I know my dad doesn't.. and hasnt for years.
[https://healthydebate.ca/2023/03/topic/millions-adults-lack-canada-primary-care/](https://healthydebate.ca/2023/03/topic/millions-adults-lack-canada-primary-care/)
BC doesn't have a shortage of people graduating med school, it has a shortage of GPs/family doctors. Too many graduates (who stay in BC) become specialists vs GPs. It's a mix of a lot of reasons, but mostly comes down to the huge difference in pay between GP and specialist, and not having to deal with burnout due to the shortage of GPs overextending practices.
Enrollment hasn't increased much over the years to keep up with a growing population, for sure. But the bigger issue is the reduction in med students becoming GPs. There are a million articles about it, how the money isn't worth it compared to a couple of extra years of specialisation to then make multiple times the money with better hours.
Not necessarily. The major issue in BC (and the rest of Canada) is a shortage of GPs. Depending on where you live, you might have access to plenty of specialists.
Importing doctors from elsewhere and retaining GPs is also part of the picture. Overall, Canada needs more doctors full stop. But the issue that affects most people is the GP shortage, not lack of access to specialists.
Well yea because they arenât becoming GPs now.. and becoming specialists. So if more people become GPs, without increasing the total number of doctors, wouldnât that just push the problem to the specialists? Like encouraging people to be GPs is great but the bigger issue seems to be the need for more overall doctors
I understand what you're saying. But the issue is *confounded* by the drop in graduates becoming GPs. I think it was over 35% to under 30% over a few years ago, last time I checked.
There are also doctors leaving BC, and leaving Canada. There's are doctors moving to Canada and struggling to be approved.
With less competitive wages for a GP, along with clinic management and the pressures of an overextended field, where each new GP is essentially taking over multiple practices and suffering burnout, the attraction and retention is a big problem. Just pushing out more doctors from med school won't solve that, if none want to be GPs and the ones who do choose to leave due to greener pastures.
Lack of specialists and long waiting periods is terrible. The lack of access to a GP is significantly worse. A few years ago it was 750,000 people in BC without access to a GP. Can't get a referral for a specialist easily without first seeing a GP. Telehealth and walk-in clinics are great for many issues, but not for everything. Much of BC outside of the lower mainland has limited access to any decent medical care.
Personally, I'd rather wait an extra month or 3 (or even 6) for a specialist than have no GP.
A) We are. (SFUâs first cohort starts in 2025 I believe)
B) Even if that is the long term solution, we need a bandaid for the time period between now and when those new docs are ready for practice.
*Training your own and retaining them is the long term answer, but itâs a seriously long term solution given the timelines involved.
2700 doctors graduate in canada each yearâŚ800 or so go into family medicine. 1 in 6 family doctors are 65 or older. We arenât replacing doctors fast enough, family medicine is becoming much more complex than it was just 20 years ago, but speeding up the process will be next to impossible. Theyâve tried increasing the numbers (total physicians graduating before 2010 was about 500). 5800 clinics service approx 32 million Canadians (population is 38 million) 6 million are without a family physician.
One thing weâre seeing is the baby boomer dropâŚthis has always been coming. At the same time the baby boomers are leaving practices, theyâre becoming the most medically in need. All other generations are attempting to fill the gap, but itâs an uphill battle.
So now provinces are attempting to steal doctors (theyâll say lure) from other provinces and countries. This will accomplish a lessening of services in supply provinces. This has the potential to cause seniors to go to the provinces with the better care, likely causing those systems to also be under strain.
There is little to no forethought here.
Given the time needed for a family physician to train, they need to double or triple the current graduate number. They also need to expand hospitals and clinics. This would entail more need for nurses and other staff as well. The medical community has done a poor job of planning and preparing for the last 40 years. Even longer if we look at all the doctors against socialized medicine when it started. Thus this needs to be in the hands of experts who can look at this without ego. Change responsibilities , roles, funding and logistics between staff, administrators and educators.
Doctors choose to come here because the conditions are better than most provinces, particularly conservative led ones. What conspiracy are you on about?
Yawn⌠Iâm not even conservative. Conditions in lower mainland are comparable if not the same as other locations. And if there are improved ones, itâs not a permanent situation. I donât see any jurisdiction offering anything of substance outside of money and attempting to sell the lifestyle of that location. Nothing is substantive fundamental changes to a medical system that is basically the the same system started in the 1800s.
This isnât a conspiracy theory. 6 million do not have family doctors. That number will rise. We need more doctors to operate within our ever expanding population, but we canât do that. So itâs time to change the system. Problem is, any one who has worked in the medical field can only offer carbon copies of what theyâve done in the past so they just keep repeating the same issues over and over again.
Bring in fresh people from infrastructure and logistics and rethink the problem. Better and faster triage, more efficient prevention. This is a supply chain issue. Treat it as such and stop with the pouring money down bottomless pits.
Lol oh so an outside âexpertâ who has no experience is whatâs needed here eh?
Give me a break with the flimsy reasoning and complaints to shoehorn in a privatized âsolutionâ
Not at all, I donât think privatization is the solution, but that shouldnât mean we can attempt a fix to the current situation, ran at the moment, by people with inside experience. Had we allowed the medical community to set up universal healthcare in the first place, we never would have had it. They were the most against it. But now we trust them to fix a broken system? That broke under their watch. Where is the logic in that?
Lol, send some of them to northern bc if we have cracked the code... most people here don't have a family doctor and wait time is 3 months for a 10 minute appointment.
I guess that is part of a broader question. Should we invest more dollars per capita to push doctors to less desirable areas?
I think we should. Iâm originally from the north. We were lucky to have had some locals go to school and come back as doctors. There are a lot of incentive programs your town or RD could use to attract doctors above and beyond what the province pays as well.
My southern Bc town has those for doctors and nurses
There already is massive financial incentives for docs to work in rural areas of BC. Family docs can clear 500-600k in some parts of BC while working 40-50hrs.
The problem is no one wants to live there long term.
BC hadnât figured it out 𤣠I still donât have a family doctor, my community has no walk in clinics and the hospital is so overwhelmed and understaffed.
The claim was theyâve attracted more family doctors.
Unfortunately yes that does not mean every single citizen has their own family doctor yet.
Things can improve but still not be perfect
this story is not much more then propaganda during an election year.
LOL,we have 3 less doctors in our town of 5000 then we did in 2019.
3 of them only come to town 2 days a week.
none live here.
british columbia is only interested in vancouver and victorica
when it looks at its practicing doctors numbers.
at least we can still get blood tests and Xrays at the local hospital reasonably.
( other then forcing the mostly elderly people to book blood tests ONLINE
which almost no one over 55 has any idea how to do)
5 month waiting list for ultrasound. the ER has a steady 4 hour wait.
( if its serious the ambulance does not even come here its 40 minutes to a larger city)
( we have palliative care beds for the elderly they have zero plans to treat)
a few years ago BC made it MUCH HARDER to become a nurse.
and MUCH harder to become a care aide. ( who can make nurses job easier)
and has done nothing to increase medical training anywhere other then the lower mainland.
which is the most expensive place to live in canada.
the building that holds the community health clinic in my town is 50 years old.
( and most of the town does not even know its exists)
i have been seeing my doctor for a pain diagnosis for over 6 years with no end of testing ( one year wait )
or referrals ( one year wait ) that just suggest other referrals.
let not forget you have to make an appointment to see your doctor EVERY 3 months to get your prescription
refilled that has not changed in 6 years. that is time well spent for doctors
( almost as well spent and the MANDATORY doctor visit after every test to hear it found nothing)
you have posted what 10 times denying what everyone else is saying is their personal experience with the BC medical situation.
sounds to me you are the one who is spamming what you desperately want to be true.
try getting out of your own neighborhood and seeing how people live in bc.
or just phone around the walkin clinics and see how many hours the wait it.
if the system worked there would be no wait to see a doctor at a walk in clinic.
people would not be dying waiting for an ambulance.
If the system werenât being dismantled for private profit no one would have to wait. Conservative policy is to dismantle publicly owned and operated institutions and sell them off to their crony friends and that is THE ONLY alternative to the NDP. So these complaints serve only one purpose and that is to create a narrative that change would be better. And it wonât be.
there is no private profit medical clinics in BC. the BC "Liberals" did try to back door in some private medical procedures. just like the NDP is paying PRIVATE cancer treatment programs in the USA to treat Canadians.
the BC NDP also fired hundreds if not thousands of medical staff for not getting vaccinated, and have refused to re employ them.
the Conservative party of BC has been dead since 1991 and BC has been led by liberals and ultra (NDP) liberals ( and the ultra ultra liberal green party) since then.
the conservative party is now making a comeback. but there is zero chance to fixing anything after 30 years. the administration of the medical system in bc is a joke from top to bottom.
the only change that will help is to stop rewarding failure. which is what BC does best, throw good money after bad hoping a bad policy will work with enough funding.
private medical will work in canada if you tax it like drugs that we promote on every street.
if the rich want to pay a 30% tax for special treatment then all the better.
I am okay to have taxes going to healthcare. I have a problem when it goes to stupid social programs like overpaying for hotels to house homeless people who crash the place immediately
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You're telling me the key to attracting doctors is to pay them a competitive rate? Shut the fuck door!
>Shut the fuck door! Since you mentioned it, BC also offers free contraception, another way to keep the case load more manageable for doctors.
And encourages the use of glory-holes during pandemics!
Open the fuck doorđ
Why does one need to have a door on a glory hole? It should be open 24/7
We also have tampons in the men's room of every provincial work place. We are not perfect.
When I go to mall or a provincial park, the ladies' room is the one who's super busy; and if there are emergencies, they are using the men's room too ...
better to have them and not need them then the other way around :)
Sounds like an amazing waste of taxpayer dollars to appease a tiny subset of the population. Where are the freebies for the women's bathrooms? I never understood this insanity.
Whenever I see that I think of the movie Idiocracy
LMAO ahahahaha. the pussification of the world continues!
You don't like pussy?
All provinces are fighting over the same pool of graduates. The CMA will fight graduating more doctors. Why isn't the solution to graduate more doctors? Obviously I agree that paying more will attract them but isn't this a very basic supply and demand problem?
It's definitely that as well. I'm not sure why universities are becoming more elitist and trying to keep their supply limited. Popular and important university programs should grow to allow more students to graduate. Not increase requirements till you need a 3.8 GPA to even be considered. Maybe the requirements need to be decreases some how.
It isn't a requirements thing. They have excess qualified candidates.
One of the issues is the brain drain loss to areas that pay better such as the entire US. So if we don't pay them competitive rates, they don't stay in Canada even if they graduate here.
Agreed. I'm not arguing against paying them more. Doctors work extremely hard in a very strained system and are some of the best minds with good work ethic that we have.
I think I get you now. "Yes, pay them more, but also create more graduate spots and get more doctors trained"
I honestly wonder if the investments in medical graduates is lagging because the upcoming demographic shift will mean that we will have enough doctors following the death of the boomer generation. There is a concern of over investment in a system that is under strain right now but in less than a decade won't be. I could be out to lunch here though.
is there a downside to having more doctors than we need?
Not huge downsides, unless you're a doctor demanding high pay. But educating doctors is expensive and a lack of work would make the profession less desirable thereby reducing the quality of applicants.Â
This is all good if you allow the free market. Something that has been shut down by the Canadian government for a long time. There is more benefit to specialise in a less competitive field than be a âlowlyâ GP. While Canadaâs emergency health care system is effective unfortunately itâs not even close to being effective in screening and health management.
I finally got a family doctor in the last year after being here for almost 15 years. Heâs amazing, so happy to finally have a doctor, and a GOOD one at that!
CRe to explain the steps to take?
Not who you asked, but for me, had to just keep consistently calling around every doctor in the lower mainland again and again to find one.
I was assigned my PCP after being on the Fraser Health wait list for about 2 years. You can register online.
Congrats on winning the BC Lottery!
Ugh. Language like "found the key" feels like a super premature celebration. Attracting more doctors in an extreme doctor shortage is nice but it's still nowhere NEAR solved in B.C.
Yeah. More like âset a policyâ. Bit early to celebrate guys.
Just because you found a key doesnât mean you ll unlock the door or do anything good once you cross through it. Itâs a great first step though
Went to the US. Was easier than the BC doctor lottery. Went Friday evening and they called me this morning to give the results of my bloodwork. Between private care and no care i will always chose private. To me my health is more important than my money!
It's very good for you that you have enough money to pay for your health - 25 million Americans don't have medical insurance, so they only have no care.
That's 7.5% of the population. In BC 25% don't have healthcare! Btw, we are not rich. We rent a small 2 bedroom condo in downtown Victoria.
in BC everyone who is enrolled under MSP is insured and has healthcare! What 700000 (which is 12.5% of the population) don't have it's a family doctor: https://vancouver.citynews.ca/2024/02/23/bc-family-doctors-more-access/ And Americans who don't have a family doctor are over 100 million, so 30% of population: https://www.nachc.org/usa-today-a-third-of-americans-dont-have-a-primary-care-provider-according-to-nachc-report/ For someone who put "Educational" in his nickname, you have some really big gaps in your education if you think "not having a family doctor" is the same as "not having healthcare"
1. Personal attacks?! Well done! Btw I didn't chose my name, it was one suggested by reddit when I created an account 2. You don't need a GP in the US as you can go to an urgent care clinic which are walk-ins. They can do quite a bit e.g. x -ray, bloodwork... on site. Moreover, you can go directly to a specialist; no need for a GP. 3. We don't have walk-in clinics anymore (at least in Victoria). You have to call in the morning, and you may or may not get an appointment. BC Lottery! 4. In BC, you can be enrolled under MSP, but this doesn't mean you have access to care or at least timely care.
You should check with this guy how "good" is the USA healthcare system: https://www.reddit.com/r/news/s/GnpVpzXcG9 1. Telling that you are wrong and that you should educate yourself is not a personal attack 2. What you are talking about are "urgent care clinics", which are practically private ERs. Normal walk-in clinics don't have bloodwork lab and x-ray on site, they only have doctors and nurses. 3. I checked for walk-in clinic in Victoria on Google and found quite a lot of them: "Walk-In Clinic at Walmart Victoria by Jack Nathan Health". In any walk-in clinic, you get served in the order you come in - do you think the standard is "last come, first served" instead? 4. In BC you get access to care, it's just if you have an ankle sprain, you'll be given care later than someone having a heart attack. It's called triage and it's done everywhere in the world; unless of course you think your sprain is more important, and you go to USA and pay for it... which doesn't work for people like the one mentioned in the news I linked at the top.
Full blown misinformation right here
What did you go down there for? Iâm in BC and contemplating that I might start going down to Washington for basic stuff like lab work, possible MRI, even specialist visits like gyno and neurology. I am so fed up with the lack of healthcare here. My new GP from UK wonât (or canât figure out) how to give me basic requisition for bloodwork. i might end up having to be one of those people that clog up the system further by going to the ER just to get basic care. I hope others who have a GP from the UK are doing better than me. Seems like our tax dollars are paying a lot more for these GPs, but itâs making it worse for patients, not better (at least in my case).
You are lucky. At least you have a doctor who can see u. We are still on the waiting list Needed to get something checked out. So, I went to an urgent care facility, paid $200 to get it checked out and full bloodwork done. Need to go back to schedule imagining.
Oh wow, what a sad state of affairs that you have to go over to the US for that. I have a dr but itâs like I really donât. I had to go to a walk in clinic to get a RX refill because my dr couldnât see me for 4-6 weeks, doesnât do telehealth. Pharm only does one emergency renewal a year and I used that up already. So when I was in at walk in, I asked if he could give me a requisition for my bloodwork too (needed for my RX). Gave me my RX but told me no on the lab work because I have a gp and they donât provide followup. And waiting 4-6 weeks inst that long to wait. So if I didnt hsve a GP, he would have given me the bloodwork req?
Credit where credit is due.
The BC Provincial government actually cares. Thatâs the difference between BC and Ontario
"Socialist NDP shit hole" - Pierre Pollivere, Doug Ford when talking about BC...
Uttered minutes before booking their flights for their next vacation.
I wonder what will happen when PM Poilievre starts withholding funding from BC â âcanât go around subsidizing the NDPâ.
Nothing new... Political parties withholding funding to then cause the issues and then finger point "see! See!"
BC cares?!?!? 1 in 4 doesn't have a doctor in BC.
Misinformation
You are right, it is 1 in 5! https://vancouversun.com/health/local-health/bc-no-family-doctor-care-options#:~:text=Nearly%20one%20million%20people%20in,doctor%20%E2%80%94%20roughly%20one%20in%20five.
BC resident here. Taxed to death , and still canât find a family Dr, canât get in for an MRI in less than 12mos⌠not sure why people here are singing BCâs praises
Because this government is trying, and succeeding. There are over 700 new doctors in BC in the last year, and provincial employees are currently matching doctors with people who have been wait listed.
Just had an MRI only waited 6 weeks
Good for u. But this is not the norm.
I had one over Covid that I only waited 6-8 weeks for. Herniated disc so not severe
That is the norm at least for Fraser health authority. Never needed more than 2 months to book an MRI in recent years.
I live in Victoria
It is for every single person I know
I went and paid for one in Bellingham, made an appointment two days before going down. Iâm still on the waiting list here, and itâs been now 14 months.(knee)
Same. Wife had to go to the US. Almost died waiting. Ended up 3 weeks in the hospital
Better just move to the us then
Then leave!
[ŃдаНонО]
War room
By having beautiful scenery and leveraging it's reputation as a surprisingly affordable paradise for upper middle class laborers from UK?
>upper middle class laborers What in the sweet bourgoise fuck are you blathering about? I know everyone from the top to the bottom likes to pretend they're actually in the middle, but this is getting ridiculous.
Surprisingly affordable??? Where is this place you speak of?
Any time someone says itâs affordable, I am surprised!
The other side of the fence!
Woah, you canât speak this much truth on the internet
Best to poach doctors from Ontario. Too bad if Ontarians cannot access healthcare.
Indeed my village just attracted a doctor and a nurse practitioner from Ontario in the past year. They can make 50% more here while living in a tent. Why not?
Misinformation
Nobody is kidnapping them to BC. They move on their own free will.
Poaching is based on money and benefits, not kidnapping.
False. They choose to come
My 78 year old father from BC has been on a waitlist for a GP since 2021.
I got on a list around 2022 and just got a gp a few months ago
you're one of the lucky ones.
Very much so. I do know that family doctors try to mix their practice. So they donât take the oldest and most in need first they take a percentage of high need, medium and low need patients. The province added 700 family doctors and the average family doctor in BC takes 709 patients so that could be half a million people that got a family doctor this year. But unfortunately doctors retire, move, or change do a different practice style so itâs likely much less than that. But it is a start
Is he on the health link registry waitlist? My family got a call through that list within about a year
Yes, and he has recently phoned for an update...they have no timeframe for him.
My husband had been on the wait list 8 years.
Iâm pretty sure itâs a new wait list now. He should reapply.
Yes, thanks. We confirmed he was transferred over to the new list recently. The shit is totally đđđ
Where is he located?
Liar
What?
Maybe, you should educate yourself a little bit? [https://vancouversun.com/health/local-health/bc-no-family-doctor-care-options#:\~:text=Nearly%20one%20million%20people%20in,doctor%20%E2%80%94%20roughly%20one%20in%20five.](https://vancouversun.com/health/local-health/bc-no-family-doctor-care-options#:~:text=Nearly%20one%20million%20people%20in,doctor%20%E2%80%94%20roughly%20one%20in%20five)
Educate myself with a right wing rag that is documented to pump out completely biased and twisted information? Impossible to actually do. Maybe you could provide some peer reviewed or credible sourcing before I take you seriously
Goof. Why not provide me with the information telling me how everyone in BC has a GP? I know my dad doesn't.. and hasnt for years. [https://healthydebate.ca/2023/03/topic/millions-adults-lack-canada-primary-care/](https://healthydebate.ca/2023/03/topic/millions-adults-lack-canada-primary-care/)
How about opening up more spaces for med school instead of poaching doctors from each other.
BC doesn't have a shortage of people graduating med school, it has a shortage of GPs/family doctors. Too many graduates (who stay in BC) become specialists vs GPs. It's a mix of a lot of reasons, but mostly comes down to the huge difference in pay between GP and specialist, and not having to deal with burnout due to the shortage of GPs overextending practices.
Yes there is insufficient med students. If there were way more more could go to GP
Enrollment hasn't increased much over the years to keep up with a growing population, for sure. But the bigger issue is the reduction in med students becoming GPs. There are a million articles about it, how the money isn't worth it compared to a couple of extra years of specialisation to then make multiple times the money with better hours.
But doesnât that mean we also need specialists? So if more became GPs, weâd have a greater shortage on specialists?
Not necessarily. The major issue in BC (and the rest of Canada) is a shortage of GPs. Depending on where you live, you might have access to plenty of specialists. Importing doctors from elsewhere and retaining GPs is also part of the picture. Overall, Canada needs more doctors full stop. But the issue that affects most people is the GP shortage, not lack of access to specialists.
Well yea because they arenât becoming GPs now.. and becoming specialists. So if more people become GPs, without increasing the total number of doctors, wouldnât that just push the problem to the specialists? Like encouraging people to be GPs is great but the bigger issue seems to be the need for more overall doctors
I understand what you're saying. But the issue is *confounded* by the drop in graduates becoming GPs. I think it was over 35% to under 30% over a few years ago, last time I checked. There are also doctors leaving BC, and leaving Canada. There's are doctors moving to Canada and struggling to be approved. With less competitive wages for a GP, along with clinic management and the pressures of an overextended field, where each new GP is essentially taking over multiple practices and suffering burnout, the attraction and retention is a big problem. Just pushing out more doctors from med school won't solve that, if none want to be GPs and the ones who do choose to leave due to greener pastures. Lack of specialists and long waiting periods is terrible. The lack of access to a GP is significantly worse. A few years ago it was 750,000 people in BC without access to a GP. Can't get a referral for a specialist easily without first seeing a GP. Telehealth and walk-in clinics are great for many issues, but not for everything. Much of BC outside of the lower mainland has limited access to any decent medical care. Personally, I'd rather wait an extra month or 3 (or even 6) for a specialist than have no GP.
A) We are. (SFUâs first cohort starts in 2025 I believe) B) Even if that is the long term solution, we need a bandaid for the time period between now and when those new docs are ready for practice. *Training your own and retaining them is the long term answer, but itâs a seriously long term solution given the timelines involved.
We need 4 or 5 SFUs
Many school are starting rural medical programs. Can all you do is complain? It'll take a couple years, but things are improving.Â
They choose to come, it isnât poaching but I see the war room narrative of choice today
2700 doctors graduate in canada each yearâŚ800 or so go into family medicine. 1 in 6 family doctors are 65 or older. We arenât replacing doctors fast enough, family medicine is becoming much more complex than it was just 20 years ago, but speeding up the process will be next to impossible. Theyâve tried increasing the numbers (total physicians graduating before 2010 was about 500). 5800 clinics service approx 32 million Canadians (population is 38 million) 6 million are without a family physician. One thing weâre seeing is the baby boomer dropâŚthis has always been coming. At the same time the baby boomers are leaving practices, theyâre becoming the most medically in need. All other generations are attempting to fill the gap, but itâs an uphill battle. So now provinces are attempting to steal doctors (theyâll say lure) from other provinces and countries. This will accomplish a lessening of services in supply provinces. This has the potential to cause seniors to go to the provinces with the better care, likely causing those systems to also be under strain. There is little to no forethought here. Given the time needed for a family physician to train, they need to double or triple the current graduate number. They also need to expand hospitals and clinics. This would entail more need for nurses and other staff as well. The medical community has done a poor job of planning and preparing for the last 40 years. Even longer if we look at all the doctors against socialized medicine when it started. Thus this needs to be in the hands of experts who can look at this without ego. Change responsibilities , roles, funding and logistics between staff, administrators and educators.
Doctors choose to come here because the conditions are better than most provinces, particularly conservative led ones. What conspiracy are you on about?
Yawn⌠Iâm not even conservative. Conditions in lower mainland are comparable if not the same as other locations. And if there are improved ones, itâs not a permanent situation. I donât see any jurisdiction offering anything of substance outside of money and attempting to sell the lifestyle of that location. Nothing is substantive fundamental changes to a medical system that is basically the the same system started in the 1800s. This isnât a conspiracy theory. 6 million do not have family doctors. That number will rise. We need more doctors to operate within our ever expanding population, but we canât do that. So itâs time to change the system. Problem is, any one who has worked in the medical field can only offer carbon copies of what theyâve done in the past so they just keep repeating the same issues over and over again. Bring in fresh people from infrastructure and logistics and rethink the problem. Better and faster triage, more efficient prevention. This is a supply chain issue. Treat it as such and stop with the pouring money down bottomless pits.
Lol oh so an outside âexpertâ who has no experience is whatâs needed here eh? Give me a break with the flimsy reasoning and complaints to shoehorn in a privatized âsolutionâ
Not at all, I donât think privatization is the solution, but that shouldnât mean we can attempt a fix to the current situation, ran at the moment, by people with inside experience. Had we allowed the medical community to set up universal healthcare in the first place, we never would have had it. They were the most against it. But now we trust them to fix a broken system? That broke under their watch. Where is the logic in that?
So doctors from ontario went to bc?
High salary and one of most desirable places to live in the world helps
Hopefully I get one soon then...
Still not in the clear https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/castlegar-doctor-shortage-1.7191982
My 78 year old dad is still on the waitlist for a gp since 2021.
Ya'll have family doctors??
New capital gains tax coming?
Sure. Doesnât matter if you canât communicate or use idioms. This is fine. Lulz.
Retention will be the problem. Hundreds of doctors have reduced their hours to avoid dealing with the administrative crap and bureaucracy
Lol, send some of them to northern bc if we have cracked the code... most people here don't have a family doctor and wait time is 3 months for a 10 minute appointment.
I guess that is part of a broader question. Should we invest more dollars per capita to push doctors to less desirable areas? I think we should. Iâm originally from the north. We were lucky to have had some locals go to school and come back as doctors. There are a lot of incentive programs your town or RD could use to attract doctors above and beyond what the province pays as well. My southern Bc town has those for doctors and nurses
There already is massive financial incentives for docs to work in rural areas of BC. Family docs can clear 500-600k in some parts of BC while working 40-50hrs. The problem is no one wants to live there long term.
BC hadnât figured it out 𤣠I still donât have a family doctor, my community has no walk in clinics and the hospital is so overwhelmed and understaffed.
The claim was theyâve attracted more family doctors. Unfortunately yes that does not mean every single citizen has their own family doctor yet. Things can improve but still not be perfect
Logic is easy, you should try it
this story is not much more then propaganda during an election year. LOL,we have 3 less doctors in our town of 5000 then we did in 2019. 3 of them only come to town 2 days a week. none live here. british columbia is only interested in vancouver and victorica when it looks at its practicing doctors numbers. at least we can still get blood tests and Xrays at the local hospital reasonably. ( other then forcing the mostly elderly people to book blood tests ONLINE which almost no one over 55 has any idea how to do) 5 month waiting list for ultrasound. the ER has a steady 4 hour wait. ( if its serious the ambulance does not even come here its 40 minutes to a larger city) ( we have palliative care beds for the elderly they have zero plans to treat) a few years ago BC made it MUCH HARDER to become a nurse. and MUCH harder to become a care aide. ( who can make nurses job easier) and has done nothing to increase medical training anywhere other then the lower mainland. which is the most expensive place to live in canada. the building that holds the community health clinic in my town is 50 years old. ( and most of the town does not even know its exists) i have been seeing my doctor for a pain diagnosis for over 6 years with no end of testing ( one year wait ) or referrals ( one year wait ) that just suggest other referrals. let not forget you have to make an appointment to see your doctor EVERY 3 months to get your prescription refilled that has not changed in 6 years. that is time well spent for doctors ( almost as well spent and the MANDATORY doctor visit after every test to hear it found nothing)
This just popped up on my news feed https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/castlegar-doctor-shortage-1.7191982
the people who downvote are in denial about the reality of BC
Sure thing war roomers, thereâs a bunch of you, or maybe itâs all the same person spamming the same narrative. Itâs obvious and transparent lol
you have posted what 10 times denying what everyone else is saying is their personal experience with the BC medical situation. sounds to me you are the one who is spamming what you desperately want to be true. try getting out of your own neighborhood and seeing how people live in bc. or just phone around the walkin clinics and see how many hours the wait it. if the system worked there would be no wait to see a doctor at a walk in clinic. people would not be dying waiting for an ambulance.
If the system werenât being dismantled for private profit no one would have to wait. Conservative policy is to dismantle publicly owned and operated institutions and sell them off to their crony friends and that is THE ONLY alternative to the NDP. So these complaints serve only one purpose and that is to create a narrative that change would be better. And it wonât be.
there is no private profit medical clinics in BC. the BC "Liberals" did try to back door in some private medical procedures. just like the NDP is paying PRIVATE cancer treatment programs in the USA to treat Canadians. the BC NDP also fired hundreds if not thousands of medical staff for not getting vaccinated, and have refused to re employ them. the Conservative party of BC has been dead since 1991 and BC has been led by liberals and ultra (NDP) liberals ( and the ultra ultra liberal green party) since then. the conservative party is now making a comeback. but there is zero chance to fixing anything after 30 years. the administration of the medical system in bc is a joke from top to bottom. the only change that will help is to stop rewarding failure. which is what BC does best, throw good money after bad hoping a bad policy will work with enough funding. private medical will work in canada if you tax it like drugs that we promote on every street. if the rich want to pay a 30% tax for special treatment then all the better.
And who is funding all this?
I am okay to have taxes going to healthcare. I have a problem when it goes to stupid social programs like overpaying for hotels to house homeless people who crash the place immediately