We were sitting in the office a few weeks back and were discussing the problem of doctor shortages in the Rainy River District. There were three new residents in the district having family doctors in Newfoundland and British Columbia. They all were taking prescribed medicine and were wondering about the problems of refilling the prescriptions now living out of province.
They were still able to have those prescriptions renewed by their family doctor back in their old province and have the prescription filled at Shoppers in Fort Frances. It is a problem not only faced by those three individuals, but by a growing number of district residents who have discovered that they are no longer rostered with a doctor locally. Almost a third of the population is without a family physician.
Studies both in Canada and the United States have shown that regular screenings, vaccinations, blood tests, blood pressure checks reduce emergency visits and costly hospital care. I am a diabetic and for close to 30 years I am regularly screened for my disease, blood sugars and weight. Those screenings have helped me maintain healthy glucose levels. In those quarterly sessions, any issues that may arise are discussed with my family doctor and addressed.
But I am one of the fortunate residents of the district who has a physician that I can see. Across the district almost 6,000 are without a doctor. The end result is that when something serious in their health goes wrong, they often end up hospitalized. It is an expensive cost. Regular screening has shown that the ounce of prevention is worth the pound of cure.
But this might be changing. The Ontario government, though a new agency called Ontario Health is seeking to create a more efficient system through combining 20 agencies and creating Health teams across the province. In the district a new health team, the Rainy River District Ontario Health Team, is being created. It is hoped that the agencies and health care providers across the Rainy River District will be able to provide a seamless system of care and health prevention services to all residents. Visits to family physicians, nurse practitioners and emergency rooms will still take place, but follow up care and monitoring will be made available.
Everything is in the development stages, and it will take several decades to determine whether this new system is more effective than the existing system. This integrated health care system has great potential. In the meantime, for district residents, it would be wonderful if more doctors would make the district their home and more nurse practitioners could be employed to see those thousands of patients without a doctor. It might even make it easier to attract new residents and professionals to the district with families knowing that they would have a family doctor.
