Why is one of Canada's most beautiful places steadily losing doctors?

It’s long been considered by many to be one of the most beautiful places in Canada to live in or visit. These days, however, residents or visitors to Vancouver Island, B.C., face a caveat: don’t get sick because doctors are scarce. So scarce that over the last three weeks, two walk-in clinics have announced plans to close while another will pivot to a “doctor-of-the-day” program. One of these clinics, James Bay Medical Treatment Clinic, is scheduled to close this month, when its family physician finally steps away after putting off retirement for years. "We've been searching for a replacement for him, but unfortunately we just haven't found anybody that wants to take over ownership of a clinic like ours," clinical manager Lisa Jarvis told CBC News. "He had been deferring it for so long that eventually he just had to make the hard decision and commit to a retirement date." The two other clinics have set April 15 as their target dates, with Colwood Medical Treatment closing on that date and Eagle Creek Medical Centre switching to doctor-of-the-day. Read: Doctors in short supply In the case of the latter, the clinic’s two family physicians have decided to stop practising family medicine in Victoria and will be working primarily out of the United States and via local private online-only clinics, according to a statement on the clinic’s website. This is expected to leave 3,000 patients without a family doctor, and will dash hopes for about 5,000 area residents on a waiting list for a physician, according to an article in the online news outlet Victoria Buzz. The Chemainus Valley Courier reported that a new physician is expected to arrive in August but will not be able to take on the 3,000 orphaned patients. Local physician shortages have made Eagle Creek’s walk-in operations “barely functional,” said the clinic’s statement. “We did explore any/all possible options to find a replacement provider for affected patients, however the other non-(primary care network) clinicians in the clinic are already at or beyond capacity right now,” said the statement. Read: Community physicians scramble to navigate Omicron-related staffing shortages A notice posted on Colwood Medical Treatment Centre’s website also blamed a chronic doctor’s shortage in the region. “Despite ongoing efforts in physician recruitment, we have been unable to sustain the seven-day a week walk-in services that we were proud to offer our patients in the past,” said the notice. One of the clinic’s physicians will be retiring as of March 1, the notice added. A CTV News article from July 2021–which reported on the closure of a Vancouver Island-area clinic–tallied the number of family physicians on the island at close to 1,380. With an estimated population of 800,000, that equates to a ratio of one doctor for every 550 residents. Jarvis at James Bay Medical Treatment Centre cited the high costs of running a clinic as one of the reasons behind the recent rash of walk-in clinic closures. "As a walk-in, there's often a lot of overhead," she said. "When you take on the ownership, you're responsible for that and have to work quite a few shifts in order to cover the costs. We're walk-in as fee-for-service so you have to see a specific amount of patients, bill a specific amount in order to cover that overhead." The clinic has been able to find doctors to work shifts but no one has stepped up to take over the fee-for-service operation, which pays doctors for each office visit, test or operation. The province’s Ministry of Health issued a statement that said it was working on a strategy to address the healthcare system challenges on Vancouver Island, and noted that the recent closures all involved privately run clinics. The province is also advancing a strategy to open more community health centres, including one expected to launch this spring in the Westshore community on Vancouver Island. Read: Island Health expands palliative and end-of-life care in Greater Victoria

Why is one of Canada's most beautiful places steadily losing doctors?

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