Ontario residents might need to shift their health care focus from "Who's your doctor?" to "What's your family health team?"
He was commenting March 11 on new data released by OCFP that said more than 2.3 million Ontario residents do not have a family doctor. "And in the next 24 months, that's going to almost double to 4.4 million," said Courtemanche. "That number is going to double in the next two years as well, to 63,000 people. So that's a direct impact on the people of Northern Ontario."
Courtamanche said the province needs to deal with the issues of providing better pay for doctors along with finding ways to reduce the paperwork burden, which in many cases is taking up to 19 hours per week. One issue, for example, is that some workplaces require their employees to bring in sick notes if they’ve been off sick.
"It's a growing crisis,” Courtemanche said. “It's having an impact on the rest of the system. Too many people are showing up at the emergency department for routine care where they shouldn't be there, they should have access to primary care." "It's a very different model of medical training that really works well. And what we know is that these young physicians in particular, want to be part of a team. for lots of reasons," Courtemanche added.