‘All the trends paint a dire picture’: B.C. facing looming shortage of family physicians

“We’re looking at a whole-scale collapse of the primary care infrastructure” in British Columbia, says Renee Fernandez, executive director of BC Family Doctors.

Fernandez predicts 40 per cent of B.C.’s family doctors will retire in the next 10 years and that it will be impossible to fill the gap, leaving millions in B.C. without a family doctor. The reason? The way family medicine is practised in B.C. – and in much of the country – is a failed business model, according to a report in the Canadian Family Physician Journal.

Given the stresses the COVID-19 pandemic has placed on physicians and the complexity of the health-care system, Fernandez says we have less than five years to solve this problem.

Read the full article written by Anthony Fong on Healthy Debate here.