It was the cat’s fault. It was crouched underneath a car and my dog Rosie just had to chase it. Leash in hand, she took me down to the ground like a runner sliding for home plate. I ended up with a serious hand wound which inevitably became infected.
That’s how I ended up in the waiting room of a Ladner walk-in clinic watching a woman have a meltdown after she was told there were 20 people in front of her waiting to see the doctor. I had 10 people in front of me when I arrived and I had been waiting three hours.
The lady also wanted to know how she could have three health issues addressed when there were strict rules that only one medical issue could be discussed per visit. “Do I have to come back three times and wait for four hours every time?” she asked.
The receptionist, clearly jaded from these kind of questions, couldn’t help her other than to refer her to the Fraser Health patient care quality website where she could lodge a complaint.
The outburst got the waiting room buzzing, and everyone had serious complaints about their lack of access to a family doctor. Nothing like hours in a hot waiting room with really old magazines to flare tempers.
After I had my infection tended to, I told the young, handsome doctor about the fury in the waiting room. He feels their pain and I felt his too. He is constantly stressed out knowing how many people are lined up to see him and how long they have to wait, but his hands are tied.
His fellow med students don't want to enter family practice even when they know they are in high demand. Money is a big motivator to choose other specialties because medical school debt is huge and family practice doesn’t pay as well. Thirty per cent of his earnings go towards running the clinic and his tax rate is 45 per cent.
With no personal connection to Ladner, I asked him why he was here. “Because this community needs me,” he answered. Now there’s a doctor I can admire.
His solution to the doctor shortage is simple: the government needs to make family practice easier and more profitable in order to attract more grads. Understandably he worries about his own burnout as patient demands increase.
My daughter is a registered nurse who plans on training to be a nurse practitioner, so I was heartened to hear the provincial government announce this week it is funding positions for 200 new NPs who can diagnose, write prescriptions and perform medical procedures. That’s a $115 million investment to primary care, which will be money well spent.
We all know this is just a drop in the bucket and lineups at walk-in clinics aren’t going to get any shorter soon. Plan your reading material accordingly because it’s going to be a long, bumpy ride.
Ingrid Abbott is a broadcaster and writer who highly recommends training your dog not to chase cats because inevitably it’s the dog and the dog walker that lose.
