One in four Ontarians could be without a family doctor in 3 years: survey

A family doctor in the Toronto area says she feels like she is “drowning” with the seemingly insurmountable piles of paperwork she has to complete for her patients.

A family doctor in the Toronto area says she feels like she is “drowning” with the seemingly insurmountable piles of paperwork she has to complete for her patients.

Family physician and GP anesthetist Dr. Nadia Alam, who has been practising for about 15 years, made the comment during an interview with CTV News this week.

Her comments came ahead of the release of a new survey from the Ontario College of Family Physicians, which warned that one in four people in the province could be without a family doctor by 2026 due to a “worsening crisis” that has many overburdened medical professions considering leaving the field or scaling back their hours.

“The funding, or the underfunding, of family medicine, the administrative burden, the lack of resources to help me do a proper job taking care of my patients – that is what is beginning to drag me down, and I’m not alone,” Alam told CTV News in an interview Tuesday. “Over the past year, I began thinking, ‘Maybe family medicine isn’t for me anymore.’ Not because I don’t love the medicine – I actually do – it’s all that other stuff.”

While Alam still finds joy in spending one-on-one time with her 600 patients during her clinic hours, she said that she feels “dismayed” as soon as they leave – leaving her behind with a mountain of paperwork that she needs to complete on her own.

“It’s tearing me apart. I had thought of myself as a family doc, through and through, as one who would practice right up until retirement,” Alam said, teary-eyed. “To leave family medicine because of paperwork and because of a lack of resources, feels very much like I’m abandoning my patients ... (My patients) bring my so much joy, and even through the heartache, I love being their doctor.”

The Ontario College of Family Physicians (OCFP) revealed in its survey that the province could see a mass exodus of family doctors leaving their clinics – or reducing their hours – with about 65 per cent planning to do so within in the next five years. In the survey, 94 per cent of family physicians said they “overwhelmed” by the administrative work as it can take up to 40 per cent of their time each week.