Quebec health reform leads to drop in recruitment, doctors say

Quebec family doctors say the province’s health reform is driving graduates away, after most unfilled residency spots in Canada this year were in Quebec.

Quebec’s federation of family doctors is blaming the province’s health-care reform for a sharp drop in the number of physicians entering the workforce.

A service called the Canadian Resident Matching Service (CaRMS) takes the applications of medical school graduates, and as the name implies, matches them with medical establishments across the country in order of preference.

This year, out of 1,858 positions available from coast to coast, 255 remain unfulfilled. Of that number, 151 positions are in Quebec, which is bad news, according to the Fédération des médecins omnipraticiens du Québec (FMOQ).

“It’s a catastrophe, definitely a catastrophic situation,” said Dr. Lyne Couture, president of the Association des médecins omnipraticiens des Laurentides-Lanaudière.

“(These are) physicians we will not have in the next two years and in the years to come.”

Couture says the Quebec government is to blame.

“There is obviously a link between the political situation that family physicians faced during last year,” she said.

Dr. Couture is referring to the province’s controversial health reform introduced last year by Quebec’s former health minister, Christian Dubé. It increased the workload and added severe restrictions for family doctors who do not take additional patients.

Many chose to leave the province to work in Ontario or New Brunswick as a result. The reform was later watered-down by Dube’s successor, Sonia Bélanger, after intense lobbying from the medical profession, but the damage was done, says Dr. Annick Gauthier, co-director of St-Mary’s Hospital family medicine unit and supervisor of undergraduate medical school students at McGill University.

“All of my students (…) They are scared they’re leaving. They have their life ahead of them. Why would they stay here in this climate of doctor bashing?” she says.

The CAQ government maintains there’s no shortage of family doctors in Quebec, even if more than one million people in the province do not have a family physician. The federation says Quebec needs an additional 2,000 doctors to fill the gap but if new doctors refuse to apply, the shortage will become more pronounced.

“It looks like our McGill students and those from Université Laval in Quebec City and Sherbrooke have gone to other parts of Canada,” Gauthier said.

The reform is currently under review. But the doctors say even if the government was to back down, convincing the graduates to return won’t be easy.