Adding more working doctors and nurses to the pool available in B.C. is the only way, in the long term, to solve shortages of family physicians and the long waits to be seen at clinics and emergency rooms.
That鈥檚 a tall order, of course.
It takes four years to train a registered nurse in B.C., and far longer for a doctor. If we quadrupled the number of spaces in medical schools across Canada, we still wouldn鈥檛 see an uptick in new residents starting their work in hospitals for at least four years 鈥� and that doesn鈥檛 take into account pre-med. It takes upwards of 10 years to turn a high school graduate into a newly minted doctor.
The other issue, one both doctors and governments are loathe to talk about, is that doctors are working less than they once did.
In search of work-life balance, the weekly hours worked by Canadian physicians have dropped from 52.8 in the late 1990s to 45.9 by the late 2010s, according to a study by the Canadian Medical Association Journals.
That鈥檚 a lot fewer patients seen, fewer surgeries performed, and fewer hours of hospital rounds.
We can鈥檛 just order doctors to work their fingers to the bone, either.
That would just lead to burnout, and eventually, more doctors deciding to take early retirement.
Or it could be that they鈥檙e slowing down.
One of the reasons we need more doctors is our aging population 鈥� but that applies to our other health-care professionals, too. The average Canadian doctor in 2022 was 49 years old, according to the Canadian Institute for Health Information.
The CIHI also found that the supply of doctors was going up 鈥� by two per cent, in a year when the population went up 1.81 per cent.
BC Health Minister Adrian Dix said recently, in response to concerns about ER closures and long waits, that the province is throwing 鈥渆verything and the kitchen sink鈥� at the problem.
More doctors and nurses are being added, overseas credentials being recognized and newcomers recruited.
Turning the ship around is possible.
The question is whether it is being done fast enough, and whether it can be done any faster.
Because this isn鈥檛 a question of whether or not we鈥檙e going to hit the iceberg. We鈥檝e already hit it. The question is how much damage it鈥檚 doing, and will keep doing, until we can change course.
鈥� M.C.
