Ft. St.John, B.C – The shortage of general practitioners in rural communities in Canada is not a new issue, but it is a hot one in Fort St. John.

Several physicians left that community nearly 2 years ago and ony one permanent physician  has been recruited for the  community. The  situation was compounded  this summer when a number of physicians were no longer attached to  practice in Ft. St. John but were able to provide  locum  and emergency  room coverage some  are working in the pre-natal clinic.

Although  much of rural Canada has  had to face physician shortages,  Ft. St. John has  been relatively stable for  about 15 years.

Chief Operating Officer for the North east region of Northern Health, Angela De Smit, says there is not much change in  overall  numbers of GPs  “Though there are   fewer physicians working in the two main offices, we  haven’t significantly dropped our GP numbers since the  physicians left  18 months ago.”

There are 24 General Practitioners in Ft. St. John, De Smit says the situation seems much worse because  some are including the 6 physicians who are no longer  operating  an established medical practice “For instance, two physicians who worked  at one of the medical clinics, gave up their practice at the medical clinic to become full time  emergency room physicians.”  She says that move  allowed GPs to have more time  in their own offices to  see more patients.

Northern Health has made a couple of  moves to assist the community of Ft. St John , one such move was the development of the prenatal  clinic.  “Almost a year  ago physicians came forward to Northern Health  saying  there was a significant number of patients coming to the walk in clinics who were  seeking pre-natal care” says De Smith,  Northern Health responded by establishing a pre-natal clinic that  provides care through the pregnancy and provide  a physician  who will be there for labour and delivery.  Post-partum patients and their newborn would be matched with a physician as well.

Northern Health has also stepped up its recruitment efforts, setting up a  website specific to  attracting Physicians to  Ft. St John.

Ft. St. John services about 35 thousand people in that region and right now there are 13 General Practitioners in the community.  Each practice could have anywhere from 1500 to two thousand patients.  It is not known how many people in the region  do not have a family doctor.

“I don’t know if we would call it a crisis,  but we  are struggling with the provision  of GP services as compared to health care in totality” says De Smit. “We do have a fully operationalized  hospital we have  a fully operationalized  residential care facility,  we have home support  staff, we have home care nurses, public  health, when we look at health care  as a whole  entity, we are providing a substantial amount of health care within the community of Ft. St. John.  At this time we are struggling with  primary care services related to physicians and those  are the areas we are working with the division of family practice and the physicians  in our community on how to address those issues.”

Physician recruitment and retention is not a new  problem, nor it  is it unique to Ft. St. John. In 2005, the BC Medical Journal  carried an article about the  problem  in  rural BC and rural Canada.

That article, co-authored by Dr.s Galt Wilson, Bert Kelly and Harvey Thomassen (who were all instrumental in the  development of the Northern Medical Program in Prince George)  said the number of physicians practicing in rural Canada has been declining “The annual turnover of medical doctors in rural communities is increasing and is currently two to three times higher than rates reported for nonrural settings. Communities formerly served by one or two physicians can expect to see up to 30 different locums in a year, as they wait, often in vain, for a doctor to settle in their town”.

Angela De Smit says Northern Health has been doing what it can to inform the public about the health care options available “We are aware that there are challenges and we  continue to  work  to re-establish an appropriate  level of medical services within the community of Ft. St. John.”

Wednesday’s meeting in Ft.St. John is set to start at 7 pm at the Ft. St. John Senior’s Hall.