Rural communities in B.C. will continue to suffer critical doctor shortages and the knock-on effect of repeated emergency room closures until B.C.’s primary care system is modernized, an expert says.
New physicians are shunning family practice, while established doctors are abandoning it because of the way primary health care is delivered, said Dr. Rita McCracken, a family physician and researcher with the University of British Columbia’s Department of Family Practice.
“The province is using this very antiquated idea of the family doctor as the provider for primary care infrastructure,” she said.
The framework of primary health care is still based on family doctors’ medical practice from the 1960s and the birth of medicare and that is no longer a viable model, McCracken said.
The overhead costs, complexity and administrative burdens of private practice are radically different from decades past and new doctors don’t want the heavy burdens and gruelling hours associated with it, she said.
Team-based medicine in a publicly funded facility with administrative support providing wrap-around services — such as rapid access to social workers, counsellors, nurse practitioners and pharmacists — would alleviate doctors’ workloads and improve patient outcomes.
Investing in medical hubs and employing a well-resourced interdisciplinary team that supports one another professionally and emotionally would help rural communities recruit and retain family doctors, she added.
