If you're from Ontario, you might want to call the health care connect people... I was on a list for roughly a year and a half, then out of the blue I got 2 referrals in 2 months (the first one never called me)... while the one I got isn't a typical family doctor, just having someone to help me with my needs is a start...

Then you merely have unreasonably long waits for specialists and testing, and then more waiting for treatment!

It's super cool when you have to go through a chain of several specialists while dialing in on the problem. Especially when the default diagnosis is typically: "it's probably nothing, wait six weeks and make another appointment if it's still an issue...", lol.

In the US, 70-80% of the time they just send people with unpassed kidney stones home from the ER. With painkillers and a giant bill.

At least you get the painkillers. Not sure what else they'd really do for non-emergent kidney stones anyway. Painkillers is probably the best you can hope for, and getting them quickly and sent home sounds like a great outcome to me.

Well, it's not instant in the US either. All ERs triage and kidney stones are low priority. I'm not sure how long is standard, but even if admission took less than an hour, you're still low in the MD's priority.

A friend just had them and he was in the hospital a few hrs while they IV flushed him with some chemical magic that supposedly helped dissolve them. I think the bill with insurance was 250.

Happened to me in Canada too, minus the painkillers.

Can't find a primary care doctor in the US either, so we're even.

Have you tried calling doctors directly?

Sometimes there are information gaps between their capacity and the provincial bureaucracy.

Surprised you weren't offered MAID.

Do you really need a family doctor? I've never had one. Whenever I've had a non-emergency issue (in BC), I've just gone to a walk-in clinic where they've either helped me on the spot or referred me to a specialist. I can definitely see why having a family doctor might be a more pleasant overall experience, but as far as I understand in Canada it's practically a pipe dream.

There are no more walk/in clinics in Canada , you have to make an appointment and they will give you one based on the availability and your issue.. also when you see a specialist, they will now require a primary doctor source who will get CC’d on your test results , etc.

This is... incredible if true. How can this be? I looked up the old walk-in I used to go to (haven't needed it in a while) and it still shows up on maps but the most recent reviews says they "don't do walk-ins anymore". In which case I don't really understand what they do. Genuinely curious about the situation if anyone cares to chime in.

They're basically stand ins for family doctors. About 17% of Canadians no longer have access to primary care physicians and have to rely on either walk ins, urgent care, or the emergency room.

COVID was a big one; lot of doctors decided to just retire at once. But primary care physicians are facing issues of the workforce aging out. I think about 18,000 of the 48,000 primary care physicians are set to retire by 2030, but we only add in about 1600 new primary care physicians a year. So by we'll be down by 8400 primary care physicians by 2030 and then however many years it takes to back fill to 2024 levels.

Meanwhile Canada's increased it's population from 37 million in 2019 to 41 million in 2024, with projections of us hitting around 43 to 44 million by 2030.

Most of it stems from the fact that lot of doctors don't want to be primary care physicians. The hours aren't terrible but the pay is low good compared to their specialist care counterparts, and they have far more administrative overhead then any other specialty. And often the work is miserable and thankless. I can't remember who said it but IIRC family doctors have the highest burn out rate out of all physicians.

This is all third hand information so take it for what it's worth, and I'm assuming that I've got an overly simplified view of the issue. Someone in the medical field could probably answer better then me.

My brother (Australian) spent some time in Canada and was able to see a doctor straight away and really cheaply a bunch of times, and visited the hospital once with a nasty foot injury with no dramas. It seemed like a pretty good system.

I remember contrasting that with my US experience at the same time, where a 10 minute consult with a doctor cost 600USD. I had a really obvious ear infection, just needed some antibiotics, but he must have seen me as a cash-cow and ordered a ton of unrelated blood tests that were pointless since I was flying out the next day. I walked away feeling like I'd been scammed.

(In Australia a doctor's visit is under 30USD, blood tests don't cost much either)

Everything is a distribution. Most Canadians spend 6h+ waiting for a doctor in the ER, and 20% of Canadians don't have access to a family doctor.

Your brother was very lucky, or this is fake.

This entire thread makes me think you guys over there in the north-American continent are living in literal hell. And I'm not even saying this from a "first world" European country. I'm saying this from a so-called "shithole" country at the bottom of Africa, South Africa to be precise. The last thing I had to worry about wrt my medical was whether or not I was using all my "benefits". The deductible (or excess) is basically peanuts (or zero) for most things, and I have so far in my entire adult life never had to pay a deductible. I get a doctor's appointment at a moments notice, ER rooms are practically empty and really just 24-hour doctor's rooms with access to hospital equipment, pay for nothing out of my pocket, they cover all my meds, they cover my entire hospital stay, I wait for at-most weeks for certain specialists (that are all leaving the country btw, due to government), and never worry that medical bills will bankrupt me.

Of course, as with most things, government in South Africa is basically jealous of private medical insurance here and is trying to destroy it because public healthcare is a failure here. We really need to add a third item to this list: Nothing in life is certain, except for death, taxes and the government fucking up everything it touches.

Does Canada just have a lack of doctors? What’s up with that?

Brain drain to the US like other professions.