Impacts of the Crisis on the Residents

"I have 2 children and a husband who have a disease-causing mutation that affects their immune systems among many other things.  All 3 have been approved for an off-label treatment with a JAK inhibitor to reduce the effects of their mutation and control their pain.  This medication hasn’t been used on any children in BC before. The medication costs are enormous, but it is the best option available for treating their condition long-term.  We have specialists in place to help treat the variety of conditions this disease causes, but for the Children they are mostly located in Vancouver at BC Children’s Hospital, and we live in Victoria.  With the upcoming loss of our family doctor, we soon will have no one locally to monitor any adverse reactions, or any illness they develop due to their lowered immune systems.  We have no one locally to monitor the children’s physical well-being while on an experimental off-label treatment plan.  What we know as parents, we know, but what we don’t know is what a Family Doctor is trained to identify in our children, who live with a rare disease. Without a Family Doctor to consistently assess their health we will now have to rely on the Urgent Care Centre and ER to help our children. These locations are not ideal to be waiting hours in when you are Immune Compromised. Let alone the added stress this will put on us as parents when we have to inform every new Doctor we see in the UPCC or ER about their mutation and their medication.  This genetic condition could shorten my children and my husbands’ lives, if untreated or poorly monitored."  CLICK to read more

28,600 people in bc are estimated to have gotten cancer in 2021 according to stats can.

900,000 are currently estimated to not have a gp in bc. These people are not receiving continuous care, and access to early detection through physicals, exams and referrals.

I have been told by an Oncologist that BC Oncologists often carry 3 times the case load more than they should.

“It wasn’t until she started treatment that her oncologist told her the tumour had been incubating for two years before she was diagnosed. Without access to a general practitioner, the tumour got misdiagnosed or went largely unnoticed. That meant Williamson needed surgery in June 2021, right around the time the heat dome was straining the health-care system.”

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“I am an excepted Foster parent to my 2 grandchildren ages 5 and 7.. I have had them since September of of 2020.

They have been on an urgent wait list for the pediatrician since may of 2021 and have yet to obtain one. These kidlets are both high needs awaiting mental health diagnoses.

This shortage of doctors and other healthcare professionals in our province is endangering our children.. This will have an impact that will reach generations to come. We need to do something about this now.”

“Here’s mine posted in 2020. Turns out I had fibroids. Those fibroids were discovered in an ultrasound in March 2020 and NO ONE called me. I had a hysterectomy in October 2020 because they were literally killing me for 3 weeks out of a month. My ferritin was undetectable for that entire time. It took a call to FNHA’s doctor of the day to finally get my issues taken care of.”

 “I moved to Victoria from Ontario in 2018. My husband and I have been searching for a family doctor since. I attended an emergency ward in November and the doctor recommended I wear a Holter monitor to rule out heart issues. From December 9 when I wore it took me until March before I got a clinic doctor to assess the results. He recommended a treadmill test, which I will finally have in June. I also requested a bone density test and was told it would take a year to get an appointment. Since I was visiting Ontario I sought an appointment there through the family doctor I had in Ontario. Not only did I get an appointment in a week I also had a blood test and spinal x-ray to consider related issues and the results within a week. This country cannot claim to have a national healthcare system if those of us in one province cannot access the most basic health care. It is shocking and very, very frightening.”

“I had to take my daughter to the emergency room at the BV District Hospital. I was told by 2 doctors they could not help my daughter because they didn’t know anything about Crohn’s. They prescribed an opioid for her pain and told me (ME!) to call Children’s Hospital. #1 – an opioid for my 17 yr old?! that wouldn’t even work on her pain, #2 -they are doctors, can they not contact Children’s Hospital for help? There is a GI specialist on call 24/7. Now our local doctor is looking at retiring, he is always there for my daughter in a pinch. I will literally have no help for my daughter, I cannot take her to emergency if she needs it as they can’t help her and now we will not have a family doctor to help her either. Please tell me what I am supposed to do. Move? This has been my home my whole life and now I feel like I am being forced out of my home, away from everything we know to move to a city – where at least there is a hospital we can get help at – forced to move to a place I cannot afford to live as a single parent just so my daughter will have someone to help her. Which I would gladly do for her but I never thought I wouldn’t have a doctor let alone an emergency room that can’t help us. Time to get moving on a plan to get doctors.”

“Beginning at 8:30 am, I contacted my regular walk-in clinic, Cook Street Village Medical, which I attend because I have been unable to find a family doctor since moving here nearly five years ago. The clinic replied that they were not making appointments because they are fully booked until the beginning of March. I phoned the next closest clinic, James Bay Medical, which said that they had shuttered their walk-in clinic for good.

I was turned down by three more walk-in clinics, one of which was a new urgent and primary care centre. Each reported that their appointments were all booked for the day. A fourth said that they could maybe see me in a week. My seventh call, to Quadra Village Medical, was answered in the affirmative—a doctor would call me that evening.

Thankfully, my malady is a minor one. I am terrified of someday receiving a serious diagnosis with no continuity of care to count on. I am infuriated by the government’s foot-dragging on this issue despite having the crisis and its solutions clearly laid out as much as 20 years ago in Roy Romanow’s report on the future of health care in Canada. My struggle to access a routine primary care appointment makes me feel that I am living in a third world country.”

“I know from my work with the Divisions of Family Practice, that Doctors go into family medicine because they want to help people. They care about building connections with their patients and I know how hard they work. I want to support them in their work.”

“I lived in Prince George the majority of my life. My past family doctor retired and I was sent to a new one. My health concerns were “too complex” for the physician to want to handle so I was dismissed.

It took me three years to find a new doctor, and I only found one because at the time I was pregnant.

I now live in Chetwynd and I have to drive the four hours to Prince George for medical appointments.

I am fortunate my doctor kept me on. However in my current situation I now usually have to go to Dawson Creek or fort St John for all lab work or emergent care. Our local hospital consistently goes on diversion, and this has become unreliable. We have no clinic either. The closest access to care I have is over an hour’s drive.

I have a high-needs child who has been on a waitlist for a pediatrician for autism spectrum stuff for over two years.

I drive 14 hours to Vancouver for pain management up to four times a year. The list goes on when you have complex medical needs. I often get shuffled over the entire province. There is no continuum of care in our province. I shouldn’t have to drive 14 hours for cortisol shots and TPI therapy…”

“One of the biggest obstacles people with Complex Medical needs face, is convincing Doctors that don’t know you that something is wrong. And, remembering everything you need to tell a new Doctor EVERY TIME. People look at me and think nothing could possibly be wrong with me. What they don’t see is the multiple ways my body has failed me, the precautions I have to take in my daily living, or the scar across my chest where my pacemaker was implanted at the age of 31. Having a Family Doctor has not only helped keep me alive, but it has reduced my stress level significantly. Knowing I could go in and tell my Family Doctor that things weren’t going well without having to explain to her my whole medical history helped me manage an already stressful situation. I have specialists, but what many don’t realize is that I can’t always have direct access to them. I can’t see my cardiologist when something is wrong with my heart. I have to first go to my Family Doctor to request they send a letter to the cardiologist to see me sooner then my annual follow up. Now, without a Family Doctor I will have to go to Urgent Care or the ER where I will have to explain my complex situation, just to be able to get referred back to my Cardiologist. Sadly, the letter doesn’t always get sent like they say it will either, so around I go. In the mean time I struggle and wait. How is that consistency of care? How does that help me live a life where my family doesn’t fear for my well being?”

“I am a 51 year old single parent with a 13 year old son. I am also a RPN and work on an ACT team in Victoria. My GP retired in January 2020. Since that time, I have been a patient of a medical walk-in clinic in Victoria. I have been diagnosed by a specialist with fibromyalgia, central sensitivity syndrome, and have previously herniated my C5-6 disc following 4 MVA’s, each time being rear-ended while stopped at red lights. I have been off work on LTD since June of 2020 due to my complex medical situation. I take a low dose of an analgesic/narcotic to “manage” my pain. The walk-in clinic has done its best to support me through my illness, but the recent clinic closures, and continued situation with doctors leaving or retiring, has now reached a crisis level where I cannot get an appointment at ANY clinic, despite calling hundreds of times. If I run out of my medication, I experience withdrawal (a natural consequence of my medication) which causes horrible physical symptoms for me. I have had to go to ER on at least two occasions since being off work, after being unable to access care in the community. The stress I live with, living with chronic pain, not having a regular GP for follow-up (who knows me and is comfortable prescribing my medications, and doing referrals as needed-which medical clinic doctors DO NOT want to do because they are time-consuming and doctors are not compensated properly for them)–all of this while trying to raise a child and dealing with financial pressures due to being off work– have impacted my quality of life and my mental health to a degree I cannot fully articulate. This situation is terrifying and soul-crushing, and should not be happening in Canada.”

“We moved to Victoria from Vancouver in August 2020. Our Family Doctor is in Vancouver still. And only because of restrictions he started to have appointments by phone. But there’s only so much you can tell, many times doctor needs to physically see you. For almost two years we’ve been relying on walk-in-clinics and it’s been hard to get an appointment. Beginning of December I got a rash (that ended up being shingles) and wanted to see a doctor, I couldn’t book anything for days. It was booked up very fast, and I was on the phone calling clinic non stop. I ended up booking through Telus Health, but had to wait 7 days for my appointment. While I was waiting I missed a very important window of opportunity for starting medication, it would’ve helped the shingles to get better fast. This isn’t emergency but if you’ve had shingles you know how painful it is, and to be left without a doctor to help it’s frustrating and sad. As I was relying on Google to help me out while I was waiting.”

“My husband has several health issues, COPD, high blood pressure, osteoporosis and NOW he needs to be tested for Parkinson’s but we don’t know when or if!!! Also, when our doctor leaves in April, all our renewable prescriptions will be cancelled and we will have to do the Walk-in Clinic gauntlet, again but they are Closing, too. The last time we went to a Walk-in Clinic, we had to wait 5 – 10 hours, just to renew our prescription. Things need to improve…. Thank you, again”

“I am a 63-year-old resident of Victoria and have lived here since 1993. For many years I had a family physician who operated out of a walk-in clinic with multiple doctors but also saw his own patients there. He retired a few years ago, and because other doctors were also retiring and no one was willing to take over the business, the walk-in clinic closed so there was no chance of me transferring to another doctor within the clinic. I tried for a long time to find another GP, but it proved impossible. I made do with appointments at varying walk-in clinics when I needed medical care. When I heard about a UPCC opening up in James Bay, I was ecstatic because I found myself to be in their catchment area and as soon as they accepted applications for patients seeking to get attached to the clinic I applied (in May of 2020). After a while, I was contacted for a phone registration, followed a few weeks later by an initial intake appointment with one of the resident doctors, who seemed very friendly and competent. While it seemed strange that the UPCC was unwilling to take my existing medical records, I was relieved to finally have found a stable situation for primary care, or so I thought. It seems that within a short period of time, problems developed at the James Bay UPCC that caused doctors to leave the centre. When I tried to call for an appointment, I was told none were available for the current month. When I asked to get booked into the next month, I was told that they “didn’t have a calendar” for the coming month so they couldn’t book any appointments. I found this bewildering since the whole idea of being attached to the UPCC was that I could get an appointment with a doctor if I needed it. I was told I could line up for a walk-in appointment but I would have to be there very early in the morning to have a chance to get in. In September 2021 I received a letter from the doctor at the UPCC, informing me that as of Nov 29 2021 he would no longer work there. He was the last of the original doctors that had joined that clinic when it opened and had lasted longer than the others (17 months). I managed to secure one last appointment with him before he left, got prescription renewals for everything I could think of, and thanked him for his services. When I was in the building, the waiting area was completely empty except for the staff. So as it stands, I’m theoretically “attached” to the James Bay UPCC, but in reality, I cannot get an appointment so the idea of the UPCC providing stable primary care is not working. And since there not enough doctors, even the idea of being able to get urgent care in case of injury or acute illness as an alternative to going to the hospital emergency is not working either. Looking back at the marketing before the UPCC launch, it’s clear that while the concept as originally presented may be good in principle, the implementation is fatally flawed. The UPCC is not fulfilling either of its mandates. It is extremely frustrating to be promised a solution, only to find that the underlying problems have not gone away and the solution is illusory!”

“Personally, my GP has (hopefully) temporarily closed his practice to tend to his own health. I have been without a GP now for months and it has been deeply distressing. I am unable to access the medication I need and have been really struggling. I am a Clinical Counsellor and my clients, especially during these times, rely on my care. I was so sick last week (because of not being able to access the medication I have taken for years) that I had to cancel my counseling sessions. As I believe we all know, mental health care is also a vital service and my sector is being impacted when we cannot access our own healthcare. This is an example of the chain of consequences because of the doctor shortage.”

“I’m 71, with a number of complex medical conditions. I’ve just been notified that my doctor is resigning his practice. So far, with his care, I’ve managed for the most part to maintain a doable quality of life – but
I am beyond terrified and devastated contemplating what my future will be *if* or more likely *when* any of my current conditions worsen or any new ones arise- and need diagnosing and treatment plan.

I can’t even find a way to get on a waitlist for a new doctor:
– not at a private practice
– not at a walk in clinic
– and not at the much touted Urgent and Primary Care Centres which the province has invested so much in, who are failing in their dual promises:
to fill the gap by providing urgent care to avoid emergency rooms at hospitals.
to evolve to being able to “attach” a patient to a doctor for ongoing primary care.What am I or any of us to do?
Self diagnose and call some virtual health line and hope I to convince a doctor who doesn’t know my history to prescribe meds I need?
Check myself into emergency for a worsening chronic condition, when emergency is supposed to be for acute ?
And what if I need testing/screening?”