'GTA is hard hit': Ontario Medical Association calls for more family doctors as millions are without one

The Ontario Medical Association (OMA) made an impassioned plea Wednesday to bolster the number of family doctors in the province as 2.5 million Ontarians are currently without one.

According to the OMA, that number is expected to nearly double in less than two years, as the association predicts 4.4 million people will be without a family doctor then.

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"We're seeing these numbers all across the province. Toronto is hard hit. The GTA is hard hit. We're seeing nearly one in four people who can't find a family doctor," said Dr. Dominik Nowak, a Toronto family physician and the current OMA president.

The OMA says it is concerned about the lack of people who want to be family doctors due to the burden and cost of running practices and the hours of paperwork that take them away from patients.

Nowak said the problem is a crisis and a catastrophe, leading some patients to deal with delayed cancer diagnoses or having to go to the emergency room for care.

"People are paying for it, in terms of their health and then our health care system is paying for it by supporting these expensive types of care."

Stephen Steele, 67, of Niagara-on-the Lake, Ont., knows how critical having that family doctor is.  His referral for a hip replacement got lost in the system for two years. 

Stephen Steele, 67, of Niagara-on-the Lake, Ont., knows how critical having that family doctor is. His referral for a hip replacement got lost in the system for two years.

"It was not a fun 33 months, I can tell you that," he said. 

Eventually, he went back to his family doctor for help and was referred to another doctor for the surgery.

In a statement to CTV News Toronto, a spokesperson for Ontario's health minister said the government has added 12,500 physicians to the workforce — a 10 per cent increase — since 2018.

"We have launched the largest medical school education system expansion in 15 years while breaking barriers for internationally educated physicians through programs like Practice Ready Ontario and making historic investments to expand inter-professional primary care teams, connecting 330,000 more people to primary care while taking action to tackle administrative burnout, freeing up 95,000 hours that family doctors can spend with their patients. Through our government's 2024 budget, we are doing even more, investing half a billion dollars to connect 600,000 more people to primary care," the statement reads.

Nowak said the OMA has been working with government, but that ambition and political will are needed to get the system back on track.

"Let's support those practices and let doctors be doctors so we can attach everyone in this province to a family doctor," Nowak said.