B.C. has recruited hundreds of family doctors. It's still not enough
'It seems so hopeless,' says one doctorless patient
When Jennie Passche gets sick, she finds herself in a competition to get care.
The 65-year-old in Esquimalt, on B.C.'s Vancouver Island, says she has to wake up early to call her community's urgent and primary care centre, which opened in 2021 to provide same-day care and alleviate the family doctor shortage.
But by the time she gets through, she says, it's usually too late.
"It just seems so hopeless. What's going to happen to me? Who am I going to see?"
Passche was taking part in a call-in segment on CBC's BC Today meant to mark a milestone for B.C.: 1,001 new family care physicians hired over the past two years following changes made to the province's payment model. The hirings also came after a record number of people who did not previously have a family doctor – 250,000 – were connected to some sort of primary care provider in 2024.
Callers share their struggles
But as the phone lines revealed, many more are still desperately seeking care.
One caller said he goes to events where first aid is set up and asks for his pulse to be checked, just to get some peace of mind about his health.
Another said he has a two-year-old child who has never seen a doctor outside of getting basic vaccinations.
Those stories, said Dr. Tahmeena Ali, are both "heartbreaking" and all too common.
"I see those struggles," Ali, past president of B.C. Family Doctors, told host Michelle Eliot.
She said when working hospital shifts, she comes across people with delayed diagnoses, including for serious maladies such as cancer, "because they were simply bumped from walk-in to walk-in" with no access to ongoing care.
Ali says while the recent changes and new hires are heartening, there's still a long way to go.
According to B.C.'s Ministry of Health, there are still roughly 400,000 people still waiting for a family doctor, which means hundreds more would need to be hired using current patient ratios.
From Dr. Ali's perspective, "that's simply not possible." Instead, she said, there needs to be a complete rethink of a health-care system based around the notion that every person in the country can have regular access to a family doctor.
In its place, she said, there needs to be more focus on team-based care, where a doctor is supplemented by other care professionals such as nurse practitioners, pharmacists or councillors.
The 'possible care' clinic
In an email, B.C.'s Ministry of Health said it is taking this advice to heart as part of a transformation that started in 2018. Aside from recruiting family doctors, it has given more power to nurse practitioners to see patients and set up primary care networks, health centres, and urgent and primary care centres to offset the need for family doctors.
It said it is updating how it calculates patient demand as a result of these changes, and that new forecasts "should be available in the coming months.
Ali said while those are positive steps, they are unequally spread around the province. For those in a community with a strong primary care network, "you've hit the jackpot," she said.
But for those without, or without one large enough to fill the need, "they're left in the dark, and so we're left with a greater level of inequity."
That discrepancy was reflected in the calls received by BC Today, even among those who didn't have a family doctor. Receiving particularly mixed reviews were urgent and primary care centres, established in 2018 to get same-day, non-emergency care to people without access to a family doctor.
For Mike Ranfft, 69, from Saanich, the system has been a great help as he received after-care following knee surgery.
"Every time I've seen a different doctor, but every doctor has been extremely professional, and they don't have any problem with reading the notes of a previous doctor that looked at me," he said.
But Bob Williams, 74, from Kamloops, said for him and his wife, trying to book an appointment was an exercise in frustration.
"The urgent and primary care should be renamed 'possible care' because you cannot get through," he said.
Even some of those who've got off of the waiting list are still facing problems.
Chris Adamache of Saanich says his family was able to get attached to a care clinic with a nurse practitioner after receiving a tip from another family member who managed to sign them on.
But even now, he says, he finds himself going to walk-ins whenever someone is sick because the wait time is two to three weeks.
"Whatever ailment we have is long gone," he said.
Ali says that's a symptom of a system that expects doctors to see more patients than they possibly can in a day, and said simply continuing on that path would be akin to driving on roads built for horses and buggies.
And while she was hopeful about recent improvements, she said it will take a lot of work to get to a place where everyone can be properly served.
"It took us years for us to get into this situation," she said. "It's going to take years for us to dig out."
Clarifications
- This story has been updated to clarify that 250,000 residents of B.C. who did not have a family doctor were connected to a primary care provider in 2024.Mar 21, 2025 1:01 PM EDT
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With files from BC Today