Well yes they are and they have been for some time now.
I drove past our Family Medical Clinic the other day and it looked like it was part of a ghost town. In the past, the place would have been packed...but not since Covid.
It got me to thinking...if we the patient can get by without an MD's help for 2 years + maybe it is time to consider doing so permanently.
That said, I have thought for the past many years that MDs are no longer needed...better they go into Specialties which with advances in Medicine there are more and more of.
I have not heard from my GP for sometime now even though I have several serious health conditions. One day I called for some advice and was told that my Doctor was working from home. Begs the question does it not...how can a Doctor work from home. Anyway that is what I was told.
Friends of ours with serious health issues do not even have a Family Doctor but have been assigned a Nurse Practitioner and they appear to be getting by okay...medically speaking.
And when I was attending at my Doctor's office...it would usually end in being given a requisition for some test or other or in a referral to a specialist. Nurse Practitioners can do that as well at much less cost.
The other thing we use our GP for is for prescriptions but I would argue that Pharmacists could do that and in fact are better placed to do it.
And as we all know, for more serious complaints the GP is by-passed in favour of going directly to Emerg.
Canadians used to bragg about how great our Health Care System is and many still do despite international studies which show our system is the pits. Covid has exposed this reality even more.
We need to radically reform our Health Care System as Canadians collectively grow older. We are in big trouble now ...just wait til us Boomers get into our late 70s and 80s.
You ain't seen nothing yet !!
As I See It...
'K.D. Galagher'
