Former health researcher hopes his checklist helps patients who've lost doctors

Since 2016, Andrew MacLean has been closely following the provincially run Patient Connect service, where people sign up in hopes of getting a doctor. 

For years, the Patient Connect list was fairly stable, said MacLean, a former health researcher who is completing a residency in family medicine in Fredericton.

"It's never been nothing, but It really didn't change very much for a number of years," he said. "And lately, it really has."

To help people faced with losing their doctor, MacLean has put together a guide, a checklist of things to consider when they get the unexpected news. 

An ever-growing list

The guide explains how patients should get their medical records and what to ask doctors before they close shop. It even has advice about where to send complaints about the waiting list for doctors.

MacLean believes the loss of doctors, even with the arrival of new doctors, has helped push up the number of people on the Patient Connect list.

"What we've seen since November is a fairly rapid acceleration in the pace of people adding themselves to the list," said MacLean

According to the Department of Health, the list was sitting at 50,000 people in January. As Aug. 18, it was at about 74,000 people.

The department said  67,821 people on the list are active registrations, and 6,100 have been placed with a primary care practitioner but haven't seen one yet.

As for doctors, in the current 2022-23 fiscal year, 15 started practising in New Brunswick, but 22 have left their positions.

In the 2021-22 fiscal year, 76 doctors retired or relocated.  

Doctors who have stopped practising in the province include those who are retiring, relocating or have become ill, said Adam Bowie, communications officer with the Health Department.

Work is now underway to connect people to primary care through the Health Link program, a service that can offer patients access to care until they obtain a more permanent provider, the department said.

 MacLean said that since releasing his checklist, he's heard from people grateful for the help.

"It gives people what I was hoping for … the feeling of some level of control over their own health care and their own health records when they feel like they might have lost some of that," he said.

Unsure where to turn

Fredericton's Don Harris said he received sudden notice that his primary physician was closing practice just two weeks after his last appointment in January.

He decided to join the Patient Connect list in March and hasn't heard a word since.

"I don't have major respiratory issues, but I do have issues, you have high blood pressure, that type of thing … so you wonder … what's going to happen if I do get real sick, you know?"  

He said a resource such as MacLean's tips would have been a great help.

"You're kind of left on your own," Harris said. "You don't know where to begin. That would be a helpful type of list that you could follow and keep trying."

While the issue was predictable, he worries the increase in doctor retirement rates is putting added pressures on the health-care system.

'We get how difficult it can be'

As Maclean works on his residency, he wants people to know that medical professionals feel their pain.

"There are folks who are already working on solutions, and I think that's important to recognize," he said, pointing to efforts made by people working on doctor recruitment.

"No one wants to see a patient without care," MacLean said. "We get how difficult it can be.

"We're trying to find solutions. We're trying to be helpful. We're trying to empathize at a time when patients are frustrated and having difficulty accessing the system, and we share that frustration."