REGINA — A family physician shortage has been simmering across Canada for years, and Saskatchewan has been particularly hard hit.
About 200,000 people in the province – or one in six – don’t have a family physician. This shortage is only going to get worse as more family physicians retire and fewer medical graduates enter family medicine.
To address these challenges, work is already underway to change the culture of family medicine in Saskatchewan. The Saskatchewan Medical Association (SMA) expects the next provincial government to continue along this path so that everyone who wants an ongoing relationship with a family physician has one.
National data shows that Saskatchewan lags behind most other provinces for the total number of family physicians per 100,000 population and for its specialist-to-population ratio. The province should set a goal of training and recruiting enough physicians to meet national benchmarks, which would mean 250 net new family physicians within five years and 275 net new specialists over the next four years.
The SMA is also calling on the government to establish family physician-led, team-based care for 50 per cent of the province’s residents within five years. This is in keeping with the Canadian Medical Association’s primary care strategy, which is being advanced for all provinces.
Fortunately, Saskatchewan is moving forward with just such a care model, which is a key component of the recently negotiated agreement between the SMA and the Ministry of Health. With the proper resources and organization, health-care teams led by family physicians will allow all providers to focus on the work they do best, improving job satisfaction, and ultimately increasing the likelihood of retaining and recruiting health-care professionals, including family physicians.
Retention and recruitment of physicians to rural and regional centres is critical for our patients to receive care close to home. However, policies to date appear to be losing ground to the reality of rural attrition. There is no single or simple answer. The organizations familiar with the issues must be brought together to develop more sustainable solutions. The SMA is proposing a Rural Health Care Task Force to make concrete, actionable, and substantial recommendations to improve the stability of health care services in rural and regional areas.
The government must address Saskatchewan’s growing mental health and addictions crisis by ensuring residents get the timely care they need in clinics, emergency rooms, schools, and communities. The province needs an “all-in” approach. This means more of everything, including but not limited to mental health and addiction workers, more treatment beds, more spaces to address mental health issues within a safe and culturally appropriate environment, and more mental health workers who primarily work with children.
The government can address gaps in care for Indigenous Peoples by working collaboratively with First Nations and Métis leaders and communities, the SMA and other health system partners on implementing the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada’s (TRC) Calls to Action that relate to health care and holistic health. As a province, we must improve equitable access to culturally appropriate and safe primary health-care services in all health facilities so that Indigenous people receive the care they need in their communities. This is no small task, but it’s absolutely the right thing to do.
We owe it to our patients to make sure physicians have the resources and support they need to do their all-important jobs. Our future health and well-being as a province depend on it.
Dr. Andre Grobler is president of the Saskatchewan Medical Association.
