More than three million Ontarians could be at risk of losing their family doctor to retirement with thousands of family physicians over the age of 60, the provincial Liberals say.
According to an October government report that tracks physician and patient counts across the province, there are around 2,300 family doctors who are 60 or older serving about 3.1 million patients in the province. Given the age of the doctors, the Liberals say those patients are at risk of losing their physicians to retirement.
“This is something that we should have been planning for, for six years now,” Liberal Leader Bonnie Crombie said to reporters Wednesday. “[The Progressive Conservatives] don’t have a plan to take care of it.”
The Ontario Liberals released the document Wednesday, saying it was leaked to them from a concerned member of the health-care field. The report says all of its information is current as of this fall.
- Are you an Ontarian whose family doctor is planning to retire and you don’t know what’s next? Get in touch with CBC News about your experience.
The document paints a varied picture in communities across the province. But are there many municipalities where a considerable percentage of patients are “rostered” to a family doctor over 60.
In Collingwood, for example, nearly 38 per cent of family physicians are over 60 and their practices account for about 43 of the 30,660 patients registered with a family doctor.
In Belleville, roughly 28 per cent of family doctors are 60 or older and their rosters account for nearly 45 per cent of patients in the municipality who have a family doctor.
In Mississauga, with a population of about 756,500, those same figures stand about around 31 and 34 per cent, respectively.
The Ontario government will effectively bar international students from attending medical schools beginning in 2026, while also covering tuition for more than 1,000 students who commit to becoming family doctors in the province. Dr. Cathy Risdon, chair of family medicine at McMaster University, says the number of international students in medical school is ‘not an issue in Ontario,’ adding that the changes are ‘distracting’ from the realities family doctors face.
Asked to authenticate the document, the Ministry of Health initially directed CBC Toronto to comments the minister made to reporters Wednesday at Queen’s Park.
Sylvia Jones said she had not seen the document personally and also defended the province’s plan to replace physicians who retire.
“[Retirements] are exactly why we’ve made the investments that we are. Expanding access to medical schools, expanding the number of seats, expanding the number of medical schools in the province of Ontario,” she said.
In a follow-up email Friday morning, a health ministry spokesperson said the data presented in the document circulated by the Liberals is “incomplete and fails to account for millions of patients receiving primary care.”
“Their figures leave out important primary care practices like salaried doctors, Community Health Centres (CHCs), and Nurse Practitioners Led Clinics that connect millions of people, to high-quality, primary care,” Hannah Jensen said.
She added that, since 2018, the Progressive Conservative government has added 15,000 physicians to the health-care system, including what she said is a 10 per cent increase in family doctors. Jensen also echoed Jones’ earlier comments about creating new medical schools and expanding spaces in existing schools, as well as government investments to increase access to primary care teams.
Speaking alongside Crombie at Queen’s Park Wednesday, Liberal health critic Dr. Adil Shamji said it’s not just about graduating family doctors.
“There are about 17,000 family doctors right now in Ontario and about 6,000 of them are not practicing family medicine,” he said. “What we need, one, is more family doctors, but we also need more family doctors practicing family medicine.”
He said there are many who graduate from family medicine programs before deciding to launch careers in something like emergency medicine.
Province expanding role of nurse practitioners
The Liberals also say the report shows there are 205 communities in Ontario — particularly rural areas — that don’t have a family doctor taking on new patients.
Dr. Dominik Nowak, president of the Ontario Medical Association, said the family medicine situation in Ontario “is not just a crisis but a catastrophe.”
“There are many communities where the mayors, the chambers of commerce, the citizens are telling me that nearly one in two people can’t find a family doctor,” he said.
He welcomed the government’s decision to tap Dr. Jane Philpott, a former federal Liberal health minister, to lead a team meant to connect Ontarians with a family doctor as a step in the right direction. Philpott declined a request to be interviewed for this story.
The report shared by the Liberals also shows that 4.1 million are not rostered to or do not have access to a family doctor. Not being rostered means they don’t have a stable relationship with their family doctor, Shamji said, though he acknowledged some of those people may see a nurse practitioner or be a child with a pediatrician.
On Thursday, the province announced it will expand the scope of practice for nurse practitioners.
The government is planning regulatory changes to allow nurse practitioners to order and apply a defibrillator, order and apply a cardiac pacemaker, and order and perform electrocoagulation, a process to treat skin conditions and lesions.
Ontario is also allowing registered nurses to certify a death when it is expected, and is allowing nurse practitioners to certify deaths in more circumstances.
The changes are set to take effect July 1, 2025.
