She's a nurse in B.C. and even she's struggling to get a family doctor (2024)

Many B.C. residents are growing frustrated and losing hope as theywait for years on the province’s family doctor registry.

The Health Connect Registry, expanded provincewide last year, was intended to match British Columbians with a family doctor in their community — but it hasn’t helped Paula Leweke.

The 69-year-old Victoria resident waited 2 1/2 years to get a family doctor. She finally matched with one six months ago, only to be told he was leaving to work at Royal Jubilee hospital in Victoria.

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That leaves her having to start over on the waiting list.

Leweke is a registered nurse but also has personal experience with the health-care crisis. During the time she waited for a family doctor, she needed a hip replacement.

She told Postmedia News she was in excruciating pain, but having gone through Telus Health for virtual medical appointments, she couldn’t get painkillers. Most walk-in clinics in B.C. don’t prescribe narcotics or anti-anxiety medication, making it difficult for anyone without a family doctor to access pain meds.

“It was complete and total torture. I am an RN and know the system. What about the general population? I also herniated a disk in my back during this time and luckily Telus Health referred me for an MRI which took 10 months to get,” she said.

The MRI showed she has a tethered spinal cord. But nearly two years later, she’s still waiting to see a neurosurgeon.

“How many people need to die due to a lack of a GP and also lack of other treatments like chemotherapy and radiation? Hospitals are so short-staffed that they can’t give care,” she said.

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There’s no incentive to become a family doctor, she said, adding it’s beneficial for a GP to work in a hospital because there’s no overhead or high rent for office space.

When Health Minister Adrian Dix announced last July that B.C. was expanding the Health Connect registry to all areas of the province, he said new registrants on the waiting list would begin to get calls that summer.

But thousands of British Columbians are still waiting. According to B.C. Health Care Matters, a patient advocacy group, one-in-five B.C. residents still don’t have a family doctor.

A spokesperson for the Health Ministry wouldn’t provide data on the average waiting times on the registry, saying an announcement about this was being planned for sometime over the next two weeks.

Cranbrook resident Brooke Burke, 52, has been waiting on the registry for a year-and-a-half, since she and her family moved from Revelstoke where they had a family doctor. But because the Burkes still haven’t been paired with a doctor in Cranbrook, it means Burke has to make appointments for her whole family on the same day and then drive five hours back to Revelstoke to see their doctor.

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“We usually leave around seven in the morning, have appointments, grab some lunch and head back but it takes a whole day and you’re exhausted, and it can mean a day away from school or work,” she said.

READ MORE: Where to go if you don’t have a family doctor in B.C.: Here are your options

For more urgent care, Burke’s family will have to visit an emergency room. Over the holidays, Burke had stomach problems, later diagnosed as an ulcer. The problem is, while Burke said she received good treatment in the ER, there is no followup. To learn more about her condition, such as what she should be eating, for example, she turned to Google and will have to book another trip to Revelstoke.

She didn’t think she would be waiting so long on the registry because the government had promised to match everyone with a family doctor.

“I just wish the government would quit giving us cheap lip service and actually do something,” said Burke.

Dix has said that it will ‘take some time” to match everyone with a doctor but it’s not clear how much time people can expect to wait, whether that’s weeks, months or years.

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Dozens of comments on B.C. Health Care Matters‘ Facebook paint a picture of the growing frustration across the province. Neighbours question why one person was chosen over them while others have been wait-listed so long that they have watched their kids grow up without a family doctor.

“Our health-care system is so broken” is a common refrain on social media.

Many question why B.C. residents aren’t allowed to know how many people are ahead of them on the waiting list, making it impossible to know where they are in the queue.

Victoria couple Fiona Anderson and Paul Bucci, both in their 60s, recently called 811 to find out how much longer they would have to wait for a doctor on Vancouver Island, having been on the waiting list since 2017. But they couldn’t get any answers.

Both are avid cyclists and in good health but they’re concerned about growing older and having to line up in the early morning hours to see a doctor at a walk-in clinic. They said they have become so fed up with trying to get appointments for various ailments that they’ve all but given up on having regular health checkups.

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“We worry about cardiac issues and not going to the doctor,” said Bucci. “It’s not that we have fallen through the cracks. It’s just one big, giant wall that we keep on butting our heads up against to the point where we stopped going. We just don’t know what to do.”

The government hasn’t provided a clear answer as to how they process people on the waiting list, only saying that they prioritize connections based on the patient’s health needs. The Health Ministry said there are people who need a doctor faster than others, for example seniors, those with complex health needs and those who are pregnant.

Dix also said there would be quarterly reports about the waiting list but to date no list data has been released.

Opposition health critic Shirley Bond said she’s heard from many people without a family doctor and questioned the delay in providing that data.

“How many people are being connected? And is it making a difference? So … Minister Dix should live up to the commitment he made to provide quarterly updates,” said Bond.

Bond acknowledged that having a central registry is a good idea but said B.C. residents need to know whether it’s working.

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In B.C., there are about 6,200 licensed family physicians, but only 4,122 of them are working as a family practitioner, according to B.C. Health Care Matters. The group argues the main problem is that B.C. doctors earn less than their counterparts in other provinces.

Dr. Josh Greggain, past-president of Doctors of B.C., said one of the biggest problems for retaining family doctors in Metro Vancouver and in Greater Victoria is the skyrocketing costs of operating an office.

“It’s very expensive to run a business in the Lower Mainland. And so family physicians and offices in general are struggling to keep up with inflation and pay for rent … and therefore the population is outpacing the growth of physicians,” he said.

ticrawford@postmedia.com

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