According to the Ontario College of Family Physicians, the number of people in the area without a doctor will rise from nearly 30,000 to over 55,000 in just the next two years.
This includes Guelph, Eramosa, Erin, Puslinch, Mapleton, Minto, Wellington North, Fergus, Elora and Hillsburgh.
Dr. Anne-Marie Zajdlik is concerned.
With many of her peers looking to file their retirement papers in the next 18 months – and no doctors to take over their practices – unless something is done, it’s anticipated thousands of more people in Guelph and Wellington County are about to be left without a family physician.
“I look at that number, and get this awful sense in my gut that we’re in big trouble,” Zajdlik said.
“It’s an absolute crisis.”
She said a “high percentage of physicians” in the area will be over the age of 65 by 2026.
“The system is so difficult to work in, with a 70 per cent rate of burnout among family physicians for many different reasons,” she said. “Physicians are not staying in any longer than they have to.”
To add to the conundrum, existing physicians can’t find new ones to take over the practices.
The numbers grow by the day. Zajdlik said she gets a couple requests per day for a new patient, but like many, she just doesn’t have the room.
“We’re all kind of bursting at the seams,” she said.
Zajdlik’s roster of patients is around 2,300 people, but has been around much longer, is part of a larger practice and has a full-time nurse practitioner to help manage the patient load.
A new doctor entering the system nowadays, she said, can manage 1,200 to 1,300 patients.
But really, the number of patients per doctor varies on a number of things.
So if one doctor retires, that entire roster of patients is now left without a doctor.
Zajdlik said in order to mitigate that number, existing physicians need the support to stay working.
“One of the main reasons that we’re having difficulty is not just that we’re managing so many people with complex health issues,” she said. “But we’re also being inundated with administrative work.”
Zajdlik said she does hours of paperwork a day, much of it unnecessary that could be reduced with the help from the government.
For example, the Disability Tax Credit form from the Canada Revenue Agency doesn’t need to be 16 pages long, it can be three pages.
“There’s many ways that we could reduce the administrative burden on family physicians, which could free up two days a week where I could see patients instead of working on paperwork,” she said. “That’s a huge deal.”
There’s also the financial aspect. Family doctor’s offices are also small businesses.
Zajdlik has to account for her staff, the office space, rent and all the medical supplies, the costs for which are only growing due to the price of inflation.
After all that, she has her own take-home salary, which she said becomes less and less.
“My income has gone down by 37 per cent in the last decade just because the increases that we get from the Ministry of Health has not kept to pace with inflation,” she said.
She said ensuring family health teams across the province operate effectively.
Zajdlik complimented the Guelph Family Health Team in that regard, saying the support allows them to work in a network with nurses, practitioners, mental health workers and more.
Part of the health team's efforts also looks at a process to make sure every baby born in Guelph has a doctor.
“We are taken care of that way,” she said. “But we’re still struggling.”
She said the next 18 months are critical.
“I can’t work forever,” Zajdlik said. “Who will take care of these people that I care about?”
