Family doctor speaks on pressures caused by low number of physicians in Manitoba
Posted November 1, 2023 4:42 pm.
Last Updated November 1, 2023 7:23 pm.
One family doctor is speaking out about the pressures his office faces and what needs to be done to try to alleviate them, following the news that Manitoba is severely behind in the number of physicians it has compared to other provinces.
June 1st next year will mark the 50th anniversary of when Dr. Pravinsagar Mehta has been running his family medicine practice in Saint Boniface.
Out of those years, Dr. Mehta has been at capacity “for the last 40 years.”
The family doctor has a roster of over 1,600 patients. This number is calculated based on the number of patients who have seen him in the past two years at least twice.
Dr. Mehta had plans to retire when he was 49-years-old, but he’s now about to turn 78-years-old this month.
“Now after 30 years, I’m still struggling to find a way out.”
What’s still keeping him at his practice is not only his love for caring for his patients but his concern about who exactly will be filling his shoes.
“If you could find me a family doctor who wants to take over my practice, I would mentor them for a while if they wanted me to, and I would gladly retire,” said Dr. Mehta.
Deserri Murdoch has been looking for a new family doctor for about four months after her doctor moved to the south end of the city.
She lives in Winnipeg’s inner city and relies on the bus to travel, which makes it hard to visit her family doctor in person.
“It’s just harder for me to get treated and get my kids treated. I’ve just had to turn to walk-in clinics. I rather just be with a doctor who knows me and my family,” said Murdoch.
Dr. Mehta says this is part of the reason why it is hard to find a family doctor.
He believes the problem is not a lack of people looking to practice family medicine, but rather those same physicians either choosing to work at walk-in clinics where they do not need to provide longitudinal care or in hospitals where they don’t need to worry about the cost and responsibility of running a family doctors office.
“When I retire, it’s not just my physical retirement, I have to sell this building, I have to give up renting this space, I have to take care of my receptionist. Those are all the things these doctors who just work in hospital care or walk-ins don’t have to worry about. They could just walk out and say, ‘I’m done,’” explained Dr. Mehta.
Data from The College of Physicians and Surgeons of Manitoba shows that family physicians make up nearly half of the physicians in the province who hold a full certificate to practice.
Out of 3,201 certified physicians in the province, 1,511 are family physicians.
CityNews reported earlier this week about Doctors Manitoba sounding the alarm about how behind the province is when it comes to the number of physicians it has.
READ MORE: Manitoba has the second-lowest number of physicians per capita
According to the data from the Canadian Institute for Health Information, Manitoba has the second lowest number of physicians per capita in the country and the lowest number of family physicians per capita in Canada.
Premier Wab Kinew said earlier this week that he would commit to adding the additional 445 physicians Doctors Manitoba says we need to reach the national per capita average.
“Our target is to ensure there is no doctors shortage in Manitoba in the future,” said Kinew.
While he is getting older, for now at least, Dr. Mehta will still be serving his patients for the time being.
“They are amazing to me, they’re actually more supportive of me than they think. That’s why I continue to work.”
