The problem is doctor distribution, not shortage

May 18, 2017 | 5:00 AM

KAMLOOPS — The number of doctors in Canada is increasing faster than population growth, says Dr. Michael Rachlis on CBC Radio’s The Current:

“We’ve been increasing the number of physicians at about three per cent per year for the last 10 years and the population is only going up at one per cent per year.”

Another of the panellists on the program, Dr. Danielle Martin, author and VP at Women’s College Hospital, warns of a surplus of doctors:

“In fact you know in some parts of the healthcare system, people are worried about a glut and you hear stories of people coming out [of medical schools] and being unable to find a job.”

That’s certainly not the view from the streets of Kamloops. NDP candidate Nancy Bepple regularly visited lines of people lined up at a clinic to see a doctor. An estimated 30,000 Kamloopsians don’t have a family doctor (one-third of the population). In B.C. overall, it’s 15 per cent.

Why can’t people find doctors if there are so many of them? Are they hiding?

Well, some of them have chosen to work for a salary rather than billing for each patient. They work exclusively in hospitals, says Dr. Chris Pengilly of Victoria, another of the panellists. He calls them “hospitalists.”

They prefer to work only 40 hours a week. Who can blame them? And they are paid better. At $150 an hour, a hospitalist makes $300,000 a year with no overhead. After paying staff and rent, a family doctor would have to earn $400,000 a year, to take home that much; and work longer hours with less support.

The choice is obvious says Dr. Pengilly:

“So anybody coming out of medical school with a big student loan, which do you think they’re going to go for? A family physician [with] no time in hours a week or a hospitalist 40 hours a week and $300,000 with minimal expenses?”

Furthermore, hospitalists don’t want to work alone, says Dr. Rachlis. “Well, I say good for them that they’re looking to work in teams with other groups, with other physicians.”

One-half of Canada’s physicians focus on sports medicine or palliative care, says Dr. Martin:

“. . .they’re not practicing what we would think of as full scope full service cradle-to-grave primary care family medicine, and that is what those people who are lining up at Dr. Pengilly’s clinic and asking [for a primary caregiver].”

The current model is not working because doctors no longer want to work in the silos of a fee-for-service practice.

It’s ironic that the provincial government has created a hospital environment which doctors prefer to work but one that removes them from the general public.

The solution is obvious, but the BC Liberals have been slow to implement it: Build walk-in clinics and hire doctors on a salary basis. Everyone, doctors and patients alike, will be happier.

It’s going to cost more because the government will own the clinics. But the alternative — privately-built clinics — is a failure. The reason that two walk-in clinics in North Kamloops closed their doors is because doctors don’t want to work for less in an environment where they don’t have the same support that hospitalists enjoy.