More than 4.5 million Canadians had trouble finding a family physician in the past 12 months, says a new poll. Yet Canada is filled with foreign-trained doctors who can't practise.
The poll commissioned by the College of Family Physicians of Canada also found that 80 per cent of Canadians believe there is a shortage of family doctors, and 97 per cent of those people think the shortage is serious.
The split between urban and rural respondents to the Decima poll was almost even, with 86 per cent of those living in smaller communities saying they believe there is a shortage of general practitioners, compared to 77 per cent living in larger cities.
"The family physician supply problem in Canada continues to be a concern to all Canadians," the college's president, Dr. Dominique Tessier, said in a release. "It's affecting access to primary care in our cities and towns as well as rural areas."
The college said 92 per cent of the poll's respondents believe confronting the shortage of family doctors should be a top priority for governments aiming to improve the health-care system.
The survey of 2,105 adult Canadians was conducted between Oct. 11 and Oct. 20 and is considered accurate to within 2.4 per cent 19 times out of 20.
Canada is currently short at least 3,000 family doctors, the college says, and warns that number could swell to 6,000 by 2011.
But while millions of Canadians are having difficulties finding doctors, there's some irony in this dilemma. There are thousands of foreign-trained doctors living in Canada, willing to work, but they can't because of a number of barriers in the areas of training and testing.
Abdul Jabar Jalalzai is one of thim. He's a driving instructor at the moment. Yet he really is a pediatrician who trained in Afghanistan, who practiced in Pakistan, but who has found it impossible to be a doctor in Canada.
"It's sad for me, but I have to [teach driving]to make money," Jalalzai says. "I don't tell people I'm a doctor. No, I don't."
Nafisa Aptekar is embarrassed to say she works as a security guard. That's because she's a doctor with 13 years experience as a radiologist in her native India.
"You feel terrible, you feel miserable, when I'm knocking on doors when I should be reading MRIs or CT scans," she says.
Across Canada there are fewer than 160 training positions for foreign MDs who want to work in Canada. Most will have to pass five exams, qualify for a residency program, and then wait for a training spot -- one not already taken by a Canadian-trained graduate.
Ontario plans to open the door a bit, allowing 100 additional foreign grads to train each year. And it will likely fast-track those willing to commit to working in underserviced areas. That announcement is likely soon.
Quebec, which says it needs at least 1,000 doctors, announced recently it will actively begin recruiting doctors to Quebec, particularly those who speak French.
However, the doctors must supply documents proving their education level, then they must pass two types of exams: one medical, and another to prove they can work in French. Also, they must perform residence duties like other Quebec doctors
Quebec already has a program to hire foreign doctors on a temporary basis in either hospitals or regions that desperately needed them. That program hired 60 foreign doctors on temporary contracts last year.
In Newfoundland, graduates of medical schools in English-speaking countries can get a provisional licence and start working immediately.
Manitoba's College of Physicians and Surgeons assesses international medical graduates for three days then decides whether to grant a provisional licence allowing the doctors to train under the guidance of another physician.
Last June, the Canadian Institute for Health Information said there was a five-per-cent drop in the supply of general practitioners since 1993.
That report blamed a general oversupply of family doctors in the early 1990s which led to intentional cuts to medical school enrollments later in the decade, and measures aimed at discouraging foreign-trained doctors from coming to Canada.
As a result, the physician-to-population ratio declined by 5.1 per cent, from 195.2 doctors for every 100,000 patients in 1993 to 185.2 doctors for every 100,000 patients in 2000, according to the CIHI.
Several provinces facing shortages in many areas of specialty are tying to correct part of the problem by announcing the easing of restrictions on foreign-trained physicians.
With a report from CTV Health Reporter Avis Favaro