An ongoing shortage of physicians has some slamming the B.C. government for its promise that every British Columbian would have access to a family doctor.
The Liberal government had promised in 2010 to provide a general practitioner for every patient in the province who wanted one, but recently admitted that goal won’t be achieved.
That’s no secret on the South Island, where many patients are struggling to find a doctor. According to B.C.’s College of Physicians and Surgeons, no doctors are accepting new patients in Greater Victoria.
“It’s really frustrating because I’m driving around with two kids in and out of car seats just to try to get my son checked over by a doctor to see if there is a fracture or not,” said Tammi Parkinson, whose son suffered a possible broken arm.
Fed up with the hour-and-a-half wait at a Colwood clinic, Parkinson instead took her son to a hospital emergency room.
Staff at the Westwood Medical Clinic told CTV News every day they’re met with people hoping to walk in and see a family doctor, and every day they have to turn people away – sometimes as many as 15 patients.
“There’s so many orphaned patients now with the doctors coming to that age where they’re retiring, or they get sick,” said Lori Grover, a registered nurse. “There’s not a lot staying here. After they get out of medical school, they just don’t stay.”
Doctors of BC President Dr. Bill Cavers said the number of required physicians needed to provide proper coverage for British Columbians has been miscalculated.
“We’ve been confounded,” he said. “We underestimated the number of doctors who were getting to retirement age, and we underestimated the population in B.C. that was actually looking for a family doctor.”
The opposition New Democrats say they plan to make the lack of physicians an election issue for 2017.
“With 75 to 85,000 Islanders not even having a doctor, when this government made a promise that everybody would have a GP, the doctor shortage is a critical problem,” said Rob Fleming, the New Democrat MLA for Victoria-Hillside. “It is compromising people’s quality of life.”
But the government says it has done plenty, telling CTV in a statement “The South Island and Victoria divisions have been successful in recruiting new physicians, ensuring physicians who are leaving or retiring from a practice are replaced and attaching over 25,000 patients to primary care.”
While no doctors are taking patients in Greater Victoria, there are other places you can find a physician on Vancouver Island.
Shawnigan Lake has one family doctor taking new patients, while Pender Island has two.
But the real hot spot is in the Cowichan Valley – Duncan has five doctors accepting new patients, according to the College of Physicians and Surgeons’ website.
