'YAHOO is my answer!' Happy outcome for woman who bought an ad pleading for a doctor for her husband

The Victoria woman who made national headlines after posting a newspaper ad for a doctor to renew her ailing husband’s prescriptions had one word to describe the outcome of her efforts. “YAHOO is my answer!” Janet Mort wrote in response to an email from the Medical Post. “We are making the first appointment today. She is fabulous!” Her husband’s new family doctor “felt it was meant to be” after getting six social media posts about the newspaper ad in one hour, added Mort, a 77-year-old literacy curriculum designer, author of two books and Order of British Columbia recipient who has been caring for her 82-year-old husband, Michael Mort, since he had brain surgery 18 years ago. Since then, he has had a pacemaker implant, surgery and rehabilitation for a broken hip, glaucoma surgery on both eyes and, most recently, problems with his prostate which a Telus Health MyCare doctor diagnosed during a virtual appointment. Read: More physicians are quitting. What is going on? The emergence of this new health problem – which Mort said has been her biggest worry lately – was compounded by a call from their local pharmacist, informing her that her husband’s prescriptions for nine types of medications had lapsed and could not be refilled without new prescriptions. The problem was, the Morts’ family doctor retired last Christmas and many of the medications – which included heart medications and two kinds of drugs for seizures – were critical. “I started to cry and told our pharmacist ‘I’ve been trying to find a doctor but can’t find one – so how do I get a doctor to renew Michael’s prescriptions when we don’t have a doctor?’” recalled Mort. Walk-in clinics in Victoria – where an estimated 100,000 people, or about one in four, don’t have access to a family physician – were not a promising option. Mort said there have been stories of patients so desperate to get into a walk-in clinic they blocked doorways and had to be pulled away by security guards. Read: We need more privatization to save our crumbling health system So she spent days trying to get through to Telus Health MyCare, only to be told mid-morning by a voice recording that the service was fully booked and to please call again the next day. Mort decided she needed to go public. She bought a small ad in the Victoria Times Colonist pleading for a “BC Licensed Medical Doctor for Prescription Renewal.” “Urgent! Please?” read the ad, which the newspaper published on July 30 at double the original size after an advertising department manager read its contents“... we seem to have exhausted all our options.” Read: Patient dies while waiting hours to be seen in New Brunswick emergency department By the end of that day, about a dozen B.C. doctors had emailed Mort. By the end of the weekend, one of those doctors had renewed her husband’s prescriptions. But there was still the question of finding a permanent—or at least long-term—family doctor for Michael Mort. “People have been so amazing,” said Mort. “All the doctors who contacted me said they would help, but many are in the northern part of B.C. and it would be challenging for us to get there for onsite visits. But they were all willing to take Michael on as a patient as a stopgap measure.” One doctor in Squamish, north of Vancouver, offered to help by “calling in a few favours” among the Victoria doctors in his network. Read: How a mental health project from moratorium era Newfoundland can inform senior care Another doctor—whose clinic is a 15-minute drive from the Morts’ townhouse—said she would talk to her team about taking on another patient. “Her team had decided previously that they would cap their patient roster, as all doctors have done here,” said Mort. “But she heard my plea, and she said she would consult with her team.” The answer came on Aug. 3, four days after Mort’s ad was published. At the doctor’s request, Mort declined to give out her name. “We have set our first appointment for next week” she said. “I will tell her you asked as I hand her the biggest orchid I can find.” Read: Ontario paramedics say offload delays getting worse amid staff shortages, ER closures While she’s happy to have found a doctor for her husband, Mort said she knows how difficult it is for doctors to take on “even one more patient.” In addition to responses from physicians, she has received about 200 messages from other patients in desperate need of a doctor. Some have asked her to point them to any doctor who might be willing to open up their roster to new patients. “I had three goals in mind when I took out that ad: to get my husband’s prescriptions renewed, to find a doctor who would take my husband on as a patient, and to raise hell—to make this an issue, that a senior has to do this to get medical help” Mort said. “But I also felt bad about asking doctors to take on another patient because I know they’re doing the best they can under the circumstances. “They’re burned out and they have to look after themselves or we’re going to lose even more of them.” Read: Ontario health minister looks to accredit international nurses faster

'YAHOO is my answer!' Happy outcome for woman who bought an ad pleading for a doctor for her husband

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