About 21,000 people in the Cowichan region don’t have a family doctor, compared to 17,000 in 2016, Dr. Mark Sanders told Duncan’ city council at a recent meeting.
Sanders, who is one of six family doctors that comprise the board of the newly formed Cowichan Valley Primary Care Society, said the Cowichan region has lost five family doctors from 2016 to 2022 while the region’s population, currently estimated at approximately 91,000, is growing by almost one per cent a year.
He also pointed out that 50 per cent of family doctors in the Cowichan Valley are reporting significant symptoms of burnout, 29 per cent of family doctors in the area with practices plan to retire within the next two to three years, and 28 per cent plan to give up hospital work within the next six months.
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“There’s huge potential for citizens to lack access to primary health care, leading to ill heath,” Sanders said.
“We’re in this predicament for a number of reasons, including the fact that too few graduating doctors are going into (long-term) family medicine, the pay gap between family doctors and specialists, and many new medical doctors don’t want to be business owners (as is often currently required).”
Sanders said that, to help deal with these issues, a group of local family doctors had an idea to create a community driven, team-based primary-care clinic in Duncan, which would be owned and operated by a non-profit society, and then expand it into other areas of the Cowichan region.
He said than, when feasible, the goal of the Cowichan Valley Primary Care Society is to also take over struggling physician-owned and operated primary-care clinics in the region to prevent their closures.
Sanders said the society is still in its formative stages, and is now spreading the word of what it wants to achieve to the community.
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“This is not a way for doctors to make more money because that wouldn’t happen,” Sanders said.
“It’s about creating a supportive environment where a lot of these doctors who are doing a little bit of this and a little bit of that, but not any longitudinal work, to feel like they have a place where they can practice.”
Sanders said the idea behind the Cowichan Valley Primary Care Society is not unique, and that similar societies have already been set up nearby on Vancouver Island, including the Shoreline Medical Society in Brentwood Bay, and the Westshore Primary Care Society in Langford.
He said that since the idea of establishing the society in Cowichan began to take form last spring, there have been some developments in regards to the issues.
“We’re not the only community making noise about this and the Ministry of Health might be listening a little,” he said.
“There is potentially some announcements of community collaborations and other opportunities that we might hear about in the next few weeks, so we’re really hopeful that might happen.”
Duncan Mayor Michelle Staples thanked Sanders for all the work he and his colleagues are doing to help deal with doctor shortages and other medical issues in the region, and in educating council and the public on them
“We look forward to looking at ways we can help support this moving forward,” she said.