The college estimates family doctors currently spend around 30 per cent of their time doing non-patient related work, such as filling out sick notes
Forty per cent of the family physicians in the province are planning to retire or reduce their work hours within the next five years, the B.C. College of Family Physicians warned on Wednesday.
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It called on new Health Minister Josie Osborne to sit down with family doctors as soon as possible and stated its intention to hold the NDP to their promises to scrap sick day requirements by employers and upgrade administrative software in doctors’ offices.
On the campaign trail, Premier David Eby said he understood the need to “axe the fax” and make other improvements so that physicians can spend more time treating patients and less time filling out paperwork.
The college estimates family doctors currently spend around 30 per cent of their time doing non-patient related work, such as filling out sick notes.
Dr. Jennifer Lush, a board member of the college as well as a practicing family doctor in Victoria, said the overhead as well as other issues, such as the lack of a pension and extended benefits for family doctors, is preventing many young medical students from wanting to go into the field.
She said the government’s new longitudinal payment model, launched in February 2023, was a “step in the right direction” but more needs to be done.
“In order to keep family practice as a career choice for young physicians, we need to offer sufficient funding support to run the business as a family practice. We need to support infrastructure and improve the electronic medical records that we use every day,” said Lush.
“We also need to make it an attractive career choice for young physicians who are coming out of medical school, and knowing that they’re going to have paid sick time, they’re going to have maternity leave, they’re going to be able to access extended medical and dental benefits and pensions when they retire, are all things that will make this a much more attractive career choice.”
A release from the college said 85 per cent of family doctors currently don’t have health or dental benefits.
The concerns being raised by Lush and her colleagues at the college are a problem for the government at a time when it has promised to connect 160,000 people to a family doctor in just the next six months alone, and ultimately connect everyone on the Health Connect registry by 2026.
As of September, between 300,000 and 400,000 people were on the registry, according to then-Health Minister Adrian Dix.
Lush says it may be impossible to complete the target of getting everyone on the registry a family doctor without increasing recruitment and retention.
She said this requires greater action on streamlining the licensing process for physicians trained both domestically and internationally, something Eby has promised would be a priority during the election and has talked about since becoming premier in 2022.
Osborne was not available for an interview Wednesday and her office did not provide a statement by deadline.
Conservative Health critic Anna Kindy said part of the problem is that B.C. decreased medical school enrollment in the 1990s despite having a population that was growing and getting older.
Kindy said many family physicians are burning out due to an increasing number of patients and the ever growing administrative load. Additionally, many are struggling with debt stemming from the enormous costs of completing pre-grad, medical school and the training required to specialize in family medicine.
“We need to make sure that we address this issue, and when there’s burnout, what happens is they decrease the number of days they can practice, and some just quit or move elsewhere where the conditions are better,” she said.
“Although we’re recruiting some family doctors, we’re also losing some as well.”
In terms of possible solutions, Kindy pointed to the potential for AI note-taking, the further expansion of student spaces at UBC’s medical school and the streamlining of the certification process for physicians trained overseas.
She said that while the planned opening of a new medical school at SFU in 2026 will help long-term, it will take years before the first class of doctors are ready.
“If you look at a time frame for producing a doctor, you have to do your undergrad, then you’re in medical school for four years, and then for family medicine, anywhere from two to three years, so we’re looking at minimum another six, seven years, right?” said Kindy.