family physicians are being accused by premier françois legault of failing to absorb the 800,000 quebecers without a primary care physician. legault claims he has tried to no avail to negotiate with the fédération des médecins omnipraticiens du québec. we are no longer among his guardian angels. he says his patience has worn thin and he will not hesitate to wield coercive measures against “underperforming” family doctors.
with all due respect to our premier, these accusations are both misguided and disputable. family physicians have absorbed more than 1.1 million patients into their practices in the past five years. patient registration has stagnated because of the pandemic and doctor retirements. to grow from 400,000 to 800,000 quebecers without family physicians in three years is certainly not because the population has grown substantially or because doctors dramatically cut their practices.
it is primarily because of retirements . what other profession is singled out when its members retire, leave the profession or die? we were short 1,000 family physicians three years ago. among the 9,500 in quebec, there are 3,147 over the age of 65, including 1,281 over 70 and 164 over 80.
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we do not determine quebec health care policies or establish standards of care or the number of doctors who can work in a given region. we do not set admissions to medical schools nor control admissions to the increasingly unpopular family medicine residency positions. we are only bystanders watching the consequences of the prem system that was designed to distribute doctors across quebec, but has caused a perverse effect when someone retires with no replacement. recruitment is next to impossible. there will be 30 fewer new family physicians allowed in the montreal region for 2022 as those positions are being redirected to the montérégie .
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