Oct 03, 2022
By Jane Brown
The burden of COVID-19 going forward will be shouldered by primary care doctors and nurses if no new variant emerges.
This is the conclusion of a report by members of Ontario’s now defunct science advisory table in their final bit of advice to the province.
And they warn that the way medical care is delivered must be reconsidered.
The doctors also found patients who weren’t connected with a family doc or medical team had worse health outcomes during the pandemic, and primary care teams better responded to the needs of patients than solo practitioners.
Other findings include unequal distribution of primary care access throughout the province and major overall communication problems.
As a result of their conclusions, the doctors recommend a team based approach to primary care which they say would better serve patients and help address the alarming number of patients without a family doc.
The number of Ontario residents without a family physician is currently at 1.8 million, while 1.7 million Ontarians have a doctor who is 65 or older.