New data show that Canadians in their early years of adulthood are the hardest hit by the nation’s shortage of family doctors.
The Canadian Institute for Health Information published a report Thursday showing that one in five Canadians don’t have a family doctor. Nationwide, 83% of people have access to primary care. The other 17% rely on a dwindling supply of walk-in clinics, third-party telehealth providers, or hospital emergency rooms.
The gap is even bigger for adults under 35. People aged 18 to 34 were the least likely to report having a family doctor — a quarter of them don’t have a primary care provider.
“Research shows that people who do not have a primary care provider have worse health and higher rates of preventable diseases,” CIHI said.
Access to primary care also differed geographically. Ontario, Canada’s most populous province, has the best primary care coverage in the country, with 88% of residents surveyed having access to a primary care provider.
The territories and Atlantic Canada had the fewest family doctors relative to their population. Less than half of people living in Nunavut have access to primary care.
Canadian Institute of Health Information
Women in Canada are more likely to report having a family doctor than men. The report said 87% of women surveyed had a primary care provider, whereas only 79% of men did.
Access to healthcare also varied across socioeconomic classes. The top 20% wealthiest Canadians had greater access, whereas those at the low end of the income scale were less likely to have a family doctor.
CIHI data suggests that while the number of doctors in Canada is increasing slightly, those gains are seen in more specialists rather than family physicians. According to CIHI, the number of family doctors in Canada shrunk between 2022 and 2023.
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