Victoria doctor Bill Cavers was forced to close his walk-in clinic to patients Tuesday afternoon due to a critical doctor shortage in the capital region.
Westside Integrated Health Centre in Vic West is just one of many clinics forced to shut down sporadically this summer because of the lack of family physicians, said Cavers, past-president of the Doctors of B.C.
“I worked 12 hours in the clinic yesterday. I was on call last night, and I’ve worked from 8 a.m. this morning until now,” Cavers said at 3 p.m. Tuesday. “The walk-in component of our clinic is now closed because we have no family doctor to do this, this afternoon, and I can’t keep going.”
According to Health Match B.C., a free health-professional recruitment service funded by the province, there were postings for 317 permanent family doctor positions in B.C. in May. Of those, 56 were on Vancouver Island, including 16 vacancies in Victoria.
“There’s not only a shortage of family physicians doing full-service practice, but the walk-in clinics around town are finding they are short of physicians to fill their shifts, so periodically they are shutting down,” Cavers said.
“I’ve had a couple of patients who had been to clinics this morning and said they were closed.”
B.C. Health Minister Terry Lake said there is a doctor shortage across the province, with about 15 per cent of British Columbians without a family physician.
In Victoria, the shortage is compounded by an older demographic, senior citizens who have more complicated and chronic illnesses requiring more of doctors’ time, Lake said.
“In Victoria, the population is probably older than in many communities, and so as people age, obviously, the health needs become higher,” Lake said. “But, we’re working very hard with the Doctors of B.C., with the health authorities and with nurse practitioners to make sure that people have access to primary care.”
Earlier this year, Lake conceded that the government likely won’t deliver on a promise to give every British Columbian access to a family doctor, if they want one, by the end of 2015 as part of its GP for Me program, introduced in 2013.
Cavers said the doctor shortage is exacerbated during the summer season when many physicians, locums and walk-in clinic doctors are on vacation at the same time as the population of the city swells due to tourism. Sickness and retirements are a constant challenge.
Westside Integrated Health Centre is a hybrid clinic with five full-time physicians, including Cavers, and also provides a walk-in clinic service.
The Victoria and South Island divisions of family practices — community-based groups of family physicians — are each working on recruitment and retention of doctors and finding efficiencies in an effort to help fulfill the government’s GP for Me promise, Cavers said. As a result of their efforts, three new doctors have been recruited since March and seven are considering moving to Victoria.
According to the College of Physicians and Surgeons’ website there are three family physicians taking new patients in Victoria.
Cavers said the actual number is higher, noting many doctors don’t want to advertise their spaces but would likely have space to take referrals from their peers.
