Langford family with complex needs struggles to find new doctor

A Langford, B.C., family with complex health-care needs, on a daunting mission to find a new family doctor, is worried about its odds for a match should one become available on the South Island.

“It leaves us concerned for our situation,” says Camille Currie. “It’s also difficult to know whether a GP would be willing to take us on because of our complex situation.”

Currie has heart disease, as well as connective tissue and bleeding disorders. Her two kids and husband live with a rare gene mutation that causes hyperactive immune systems.

“They risk having much more severe cases of anything they contract,” says Currie.

They say they’re grateful that years of continuous care with their doctor helped them solve the diagnostic puzzle and connect the children with specialists at BC Children’s Hospital for an experimental drug.

“If we chose to not put our children on the medication, there was a very high probability that they could be individuals that contracted COVID-19 and would not survive it,” says Currie.

But the family recently learned the physician that helped them get this far is closing her practice in April, putting them on a mission to find a new doctor in a region stretched thin.

Currie says she put their names on a provincial registry, but doesn’t expect to hear back. She also says she’s looked up local clinics to see if anyone was taking patients, to no avail.

“We don’t know how to make it better for ourselves and how to make it better for those like us out there," she said.

The College of Physicians and Surgeons of B.C. says the rules for any practice open to new patients are simple: “We expect it to be on a first-come, first-served basis,” said CEO and registrar Dr. Heidi Oetter.

But a retired physician who spent the majority of his decades-long career running a family practice suggests there’s little incentive under the current fee-for-service model to add to the workload – perhaps making matters worse for those in need of complex care.

“Because they do require a lot of time and time is not on the side of the physician, unfortunately, because of the way you get paid,” said Dr. Terry Meadows.

He says a shift away from the fee-for-service structure, which pays doctors for helping a patient with one matter, toward salaries would help. He also thinks family practices should be operating as part of larger clinic settings.

“The job of the physician can then become to be a physician,” he said. “You don’t have to be a manager, look after the staff, ordering the supplies, and looking after computers.”

Dr. Meadows says if a physician isn’t seeing six or seven patients an hour, they aren't making a reasonable wage.