Yeah this was a disturbingly common theme in what many of the other panel members were experiencing. Canada has a great public healthcare system - if you have a family doctor (who isn’t overbooked). I do feel some optimism though as it seems like this current provincial government is actually making changes that are causing things to head in the right direction, but our panel had a lot of other suggestions that would help alleviate some of the burden on family doctors (the tl;dr is that family doctors provide way more care than they did 50 years ago and are also overburdened with paperwork, on top of an antiquated business model where they have to run a business with employees, bookkeeping, etc.)
The whole “run a business” thing is bonkers. No wonder so many family doctors give up and go do something else.
With that change in the CBC article that you linked… there’s hope. My family doctor told us that she’s going to retire this year… hopefully there’s a replacement or 10 at the clinic so people can start getting that initial care they need and relieve the pressure on the ER :-(
