Trying to find a family doctor!

[alicia]

Sorry for resurrecting this old thread, but I never realized how bad it was (had the same Dr/practice since I was born). We recently moved to a much smaller city center and I've said the phrase "are any of your physicians accepting new patients" so many times... I am not even at a point of being picky, I just want ANY family doctor at this point. My fiance needs medical monitoring, and we can't travel back to our old city 4.5 hours away every month or so for a regular appointment. I am so stressed out by this whole thing because I feel guilty about it since it was my career that brought us here. He needs a doctor, and even having a friend that works as a nurse in a medical professional center can't get us any leads. Not looking great...

[matrix82]

I've been on a citywide waiting list for over a year now. There are an estimated 5300 people on the waiting list with an average wait of 5 years for a doctor. A friend who has a doctor says it takes 6 weeks to get an appointment with her doctor as she is so overrun with patients.

[alicia]

who runs the city-wide waiting list? I think you're in NB matrix, right? But perhaps it will give me a starting point here in NS.

[Venuila]

I hear ya. When I had DS I was looking for a family doctor but could NOT find one so went with a Nurse Practitioner...that was really my only option because I wanted to meet her before he was born and the due date was fast approaching! So far, so good...I am pretty convinced I won't find my idea of an "ideal" Doctor for us, but the NP has been really good - no complaints thus far. We've moved since so it is now a 45 min drive there but am staying with them for now...maybe in the future will change to someone closer but .
Goodluck!

[matrix82]

who runs the city-wide waiting list? I think you're in NB matrix, right? But perhaps it will give me a starting point here in NS.

Yeah I am in Fredericton, the hospital runs the city wide waiting list.

[Shirnette]

Good luck.... Mine are ok...had a good one in Scarborough when I lived there; he then moved to a location in Vaughan & I moved to Mississauga..took me a while to get there but worst was the wait time.. up to an hour after the time of appt & I'm still sitting in waiting area...Got fed up & now at a location close to home with fairly competent drs though I hate the fact it's a walk in facility as well.

There is no shortage of doctors; the truth is that there are many qualified drs driving taxis etc. They have paid to come to this country on premise that they will eventually practise but there is a lot of red tape; med schools only accept so many students, language barrier, huge financial burden to study etc. If it was easier to retrain them to meet Canadian standard, we probably wouldn't be having this problem. The process is waaaay more fair & accessible in the USA..

[emg]

Interesting thread. here my two cents. Medical school is way to expensive and drs have to work extensively after they graduate. Many drs go on stress leave or become sick. The system needs to change for sure. Many drs leave to the US or other common wealth countries where they have better pay and better working conditions.

[CrazyQT]

I worked in a family practice doctor's office for years and years....

Doctors are overworked because parents don't know how to deal with their children's minor aliments without running to the doctor. Children grow. They get growing pains. They get stomach aches. They get fevers. They get coughs and sniffles and even rashes but that does not mean that parents need to call the doctor the minute the child wakes up with a complaint. I understand there are families that have children who require more medical care than some and I am not speaking about these people.

We had a family in our practice that would call at least 3 times a week for her 2 children. Often times because James woke up with a pain in his leg and Sally woke up with crust in her eyes. We had no choice but the squeeze them in because if we didn't they would take themselves to the nearest walk in clinic and see the on call physician there. We would then get billed for that visit because someone has to pay the doctor! 99% of the time the appointment was to give reassurance to the mom.

Anyway, I feel your pain not having a family doctor close by for your ongoing medical needs. It's not always the governments fault though. Those that run to the doctor for anything and everything are the ones that clog up the waiting rooms and go over their allotted time with the doctor are to blame too.

Also, this had me thinking. If you have an appointment for little Johnny as a call in, don't take your other three children in and expect to sneak them in to see the doctor at the same time. It puts the doctor in an awkward position and makes those in the waiting room wait even longer because you've gone over your appointment allotment.

[brenran99]

We had a shortage in Niagara for years, but we have many new doctors that have come to the area. Some are still advertising for patients as their practice is not full. This could be because some people say they want a family doctor and don't care who it is, but yet, because the doctor is foreign trained and can't speak English very well, they don't want that doctor. And we have another one coming soon. Since that doctor is coming from Eastern Canada, I am guessing we are gaining a GP and you are losing one. I have noticed that there does seem to be more female family doctors coming to this area than males lately.

[matrix82]

We had a shortage in Niagara for years, but we have many new doctors that have come to the area. Some are still advertising for patients as their practice is not full. This could be because some people say they want a family doctor and don't care who it is, but yet, because the doctor is foreign trained and can't speak English very well, they don't want that doctor. And we have another one coming soon. Since that doctor is coming from Eastern Canada, I am guessing we are gaining a GP and you are losing one. I have noticed that there does seem to be more female family doctors coming to this area than males lately.

I could care less about english skills. As long as they are well educated and know what they are doing, doesn't matter to me.

[couponmummy]

they would take themselves to the nearest walk in clinic and see the on call physician there. We would then get billed for that visit because someone has to pay the doctor!

I don't understand this. How could someone see one doctor and another doctor gets the bill?

[couponmummy]

From what I know, all public doctor visits are covered by Medicare. So if anything, doctors are paid, not the other way around.

On another note, when a nurse takes your blood pressure when it is not really required, they get to charge the government for that 5 minute work. Now that is sneaky, money maker for the clinic and the patients don't know enough to refuse.

Whenever I go to a walk-in clinic to see the next GP available, there is a nurse who prepares the paperwork and always takes my blood pressure.

[CrazyQT]

Family physicians get billed a percentage when their patients go to a Walk in Clinic. Google "Physician Access Bonus" and it will explain what it means.

[mickey53]

Soon I will be looking for a family doctor again, this has happened 3 times, I get young female doctor and then for different reasons they decide to move. Ten years ago I went almost 3 years without a doctor and have been lucky to have latest for last 7 years but she is leaving in August. As one ages having a family physician becomes more important for prescriptions etc. Have my fingers crossed for my search.

[matrix82]

The province started a new provincial family doctor waiting list through 811, replacing the city waiting list. I am frustrated because it means that the wait time starts again, as the old lists were not transferred over.