How older Canadian physicians are cutting back hours and dropping patients:
The physician said he could no longer keep up with an overwhelming workload, so he and another doctor who has been assisting him with those patients held a lottery.The 500 people whose names came up were sent a letter telling them they would have to go somewhere else.
Related posts:
- Dropping Medicare patients
- Promoting medication adherence via lottery
- Dropping obstetrics
- Patient rights
- If Socialized Medicine is So Good…
- A PCP’s patient panel
- "I can’t afford health insurance"
KevinMD.com on Facebook
{ 3 comments }
Edmonton Alberta has a population of about seven hundred thousand, metro area one mull
Wikipedia says Edmonton has a 2006 population of 730,372. Metro area is 1,034,945 in 2006.
So a good-sized city, comparable maybe to Portland Oregon. Edmonton is significantly bigger than, say, Boise or Spokane.
It is hardly surprising that a family doc in his 60’s might want to slow down. Sometimes the docs turn away patients or encourage existing patients to go elsewhere.
But could you imagine a news article like this in the Portland or Seattle papers? Heck, even in the Boise newspapers? One single family doc slows down and there’s some sort of an access crisis?
Either they’re really hurting for doctors there, or they’re hurting for newsworthy material.
Mull? million. sorry ’bout that.
yep, severe doctor shortage here in Edmonton, unfortunately for the 500 patients Dr. Ausford dropped many of them won’t have any chance of finding a new family physician and will have to resort to walk-in clinics/emergency departments. And, in Canada you generally can’t see a specialist without seeing a GP/family doctor first for a referral…
Comments on this entry are closed.