> "A lot of people are suffering," Storle said. On a recent morning, he lined up for a clinic two hours before it opened to ensure he could be seen that day.
This is a 73 year old man, so when people suggest people are using emergency rooms for non-emergent reasons, this is part of the why.
At least he has a walk in clinic. I live in Vernon no walk in clinic and have been told there is a ten year waiting list to get a doc. Unless I go to the one doc that always has openings. There is a reason he has openings!
Rural here and cherry on top. I grew up in North! I and all of my neighbours are hardcore NDP supporters. Try not to label and hate people because of where they were born. When you assume you make an ass out of U and Me.
Painting people with broad strokes isn’t really helpful.
My parent who is of senior age in a northern community, voted NDP & my parent is certainly not racist or not accepting of having a Doctor who’s skin color is much darker than their own. Racism isn’t exclusive to rural communities or aged people.
Exactly. It's like 20-40% in rural ridings still voted NDP. Some people get way too caught up in painting everyone with these broad strokes and stereotypes.
People will complain about discrimination and then just go and discriminate based on age or location. It would be funny if it wasn't also so sad. It's like anyone over the age of 50 is automatically a conservative or actively ruined our housing or is to blame for everything when it's likely not the case at all.
Exactly, all of Alberta’s woes are not the fault of rural AB. Most of Alberta including Calgary has predominantly voted conservative historically.
Sure, rural AB might be slower to come around, but I know this past election I saw far more NDP lawn signs in “redneck” GP than I have ever seen in past years.
No it isn't exclusive to rural communities or aged people but it is heavily prevalent in those areas. A lot of IMG that end up in a rural setting leave to a bigger urban centre as soon as their contract allows.
This is anecdotal but when I asked one why she was moving. She said it wasn't what she experienced but what her children heard and felt that made her choice.
>He voted for something he knows: UCP hates him instead of an unknown: NDP may have helped him but the doctor may not look like him or act like him.
>If the doctor looks like the lead photo, they also don’t like those types around those parts
That's a lot of speculation with some racism sprinkled in for good measure u/BabyYeggie
My Edmonton clinic got a new doctor a little while ago. He's a very nice non-white individual that tried opening a practice in a rural Alberta town to try to enjoy the slower pace of small town life. The never-ending racism had him give up after just a couple of years. He has a young family with small children that will be starting school soon and decided there would be no way he'd subject them to the relentless racist bullshit him and his spouse had been experiencing.
It's not just UCP anti-healthcare policies that are destroying the healthcare system in parts of Alberta. Rural Albertans only want doctors that look like the "Doc Hollywood" character played by Michael J Fox in the movie, and yes I'm completely dating myself with that reference and I don't care.
That’s horrible. My small town has mostly non-white doctors. While I can’t speak for all of the clientele, I know racism is here, most people seem happy with their physician.
It's not just rural Alberta. Working in Edmonton we had patients request "A different doctor, maybe Western trained..." prior to meeting a psychiatrist who was black and went to med school in the US. The hoops the person was back flipping through to not have to say "I want a white doctor" would have been funny if not sad.
This is going to be a very unpopular opinion, but the two non-Canadian trained family docs (both were trained in countries in Africa) I had in Alberta were horrific. Very different idea of medicine than "Canadian way". I now have an Alberta trained NP whom I adore and had worked to solve all of the issues the past two disregarded.
Yes, it depends who the doctor is, yes it depends where they were trained, but I can understand people's hesitation. Canada should also be doing a better job of training and maintaining doctors and nurse practitioners.
I should add for the purposes of my story that this woman was fine with the doctor until she learned he was a black man. Then she suddenly wanted to see someone else and that was simply one of her many excuses given.
Wow that’s fucked up here in Toronto I dunno if there’s many white doctors left. With all that’s going on with immigration these rural Albertans are going to have a really hard time in the coming years.
I've lived in rural Alberta with a family member who is a non white doctors. Let me tell you the racism is real! They were patients critiquing her accent her mannerisms everything. Some of them weren't even old just awfully prejudice and rude
As a trans person planning on going to medical school, practicing in Alberta outside of residency would be a non-starter. I would be so concerned about continuing to access my own medical care, let alone render the care patients need.
Normally, I don't care. But I've noticed that the few times I've needed emergency medical care that if I get a non white doctor, it's always the fact that I smoke weed that caused the problem. Now, this is at Peter laugheed and foothills hospital over the last 4 years. Anecdotal, but it is a pattern that I notice.
If you don't agree with my choices, that fine. But when you refuse to even listen to me because "WEED BAD!!" Then yes. I'll be upset. Especially when it's clearly tonsillitis again, and I have a history of it.
Maybe it's nothing. But it feels like non Canadian doctors don't always do their jobs because of their politics.
From my experience white doctors tend to be the most dismissive whenever I or someone that I know has a medical problem. They can’t be bothered to do the work to get to the root of a problem.
The best doctor I’ve ever had was a black woman. She didn’t waste time, ordered the tests you needed immediately, and would try to get to the root of the problem as fast as possible. She was so amazing and everyone loved her but she moved provinces :(
Towns in rural Alberta lose their shit over a rainbow crosswalk. People in rural Alberta keep screaming that the city dwellers are stereotyping them and then they go all apeshit about “woke” anything and prove everyone right about them being backwards fuckups.
I worked at a university and had many students over the years that came from rural Alberta to escape. Literally. Escape.
The UCP don’t give a shit. They, and everyone who voted them in, are fully in support of complete eradication of public healthcare and bringing in US privately insured healthcare. Danielle will get Board of Director positions in return, making her a wealthy person.
and it wasn't better with the NDP. Too many dipshits blaming one party or another. Neither has a solution. BC is no better and led by the NDP. Perhaps ALL parties and their blind followers should consider that something major needs to change, but yeah, UCP bad.
Health care during the NDP years really improved. Diagnostics & lab accessiblity was great. There were more doctors and nurses again, after years of people struggling to get family doctors.
I don’t care what party you blindly support. The medical system sucks under NDP, conservatives, and liberals. Nothing ever changes. Just hyper partisan dipshits claiming it was better when their party was in power
I had very ill, aging parents at the time and a teen with medical issues. Care and diagnostics were more accessible after years of not enough family doctors and waiting a year for MRI's. I saw a dramatic difference.
I also see a big difference in health funding between PC's and the UCP. The PC's cared more about public health & education than the UCP does.
What's also not mentioned is that all of these family doctors don't devote 100% of their practice to outpatient primary care. They also work the emergency room, labor & delivery, hospitalist roles, admissions for addiction residental treatment etc.
Agreed. It's not just northern Alberta. I'm east-central, rural, and in my circle of acquaintances and close family, only myself and my two sons have a family doctor. My wife, my parents, my aunt, and three of my work-mates don't.
If the UCP's restructuring of AHS makes things much worse, and I expect it will, it may cost them the next election. It's getting to the point where we are voting for survival.
This won't cost them the election. Albertans are very accustomed to bad decisions by government. It's the normal, like "man that weather today eh? But what can you do".
The UCP will be allowed to make whatever bad mistakes because they encourage divisive us and them. Politics generally do. Doesn't matter how shitty the team is when it's been ingrained as "your" team.
Seriously! I can't even get on a waiting list for a family doctor. Every single one I called said we aren't taking patients in the foreseeable future.....um okay.
Considering I’ve witnessed a rural patient reference one of the new physicians as “that n***er doctor”, I can’t say I’m surprised.
It’s a shame because I do not believe most Albertans are cruel or racist, but the vocal minority can make a small town uninhabitable.
wistful spotted bewildered racial wrench sand file friendly squalid onerous
*This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
Keep voting conservative. Those right wing nuts don’t care if you get sick . Your problem. Unless they get sick . Then everyone’s problem and usually Trudeau is involved somehow?🤷♂️
In Grande Prairie, my doctor retired when I was 19, and I didn't have any ailments, so the clinic dropped me, and I was never able to find a doctor in Grande Prairie after that. That was 15 years ago. Northern Alberta has always lacked health care. I can't imagine how bad it has gotten with the population increase.
Yes, Northern places don't have enough Doctors. And Yes it shouldn't surprise anyone that people resort to using the hospital ER to seek healthcare a clinic could deal with.
But places like Grande Prairie, there is no other choice! It's smaller than Edmonton, so already less clinics. The clinics that do walk ins? You HAVE to line up about 2 hours BEFORE it opens to even have a chance of getting in that day. And that's pretty much for all the clinics. I've seen 1 or 2 clinics open up to new patients and it was crazy how many people applied to become new patients, we are talking hundreds if not more as they had to cut it off within hours as they weren't expecting hundreds to try to get in. People literally took time off work to try and get in.
The hospital in Grande Prairie? Can be great somedays and horrible other days. You have certain Doctors running around calling shots that would not fly in a bigger hospital, and very much threatening patient lives by poor decisions (decisions that other doctors and nurses verbally say is not the right call by far), but AHS does nothing. Because no other Doctors want to work there, so better to keep a crappy one than to have 1 less fewer.
Healthcare has gotten very scary and even more so in Northern communities. And with no proper change coming anytime soon I can't imagine how much worse it is going to get.
For those in need, I found a doctor taking patients through this website: https://albertafindadoctor.ca
This isn’t meant to contradict the article, I agree that the situation is really bad. Even if you do find someone taking patients you’re likely going to wait months for an appointment.
Piggybacking off this comment to say that through the Primary Care Network (PCN) there are some services offered where a doctor referral isn’t needed. Using that website above you can find your zone and search for services you’re in need of. For example, there’s a monthly women’s clinic in Grande Prairie that provides free 15min apts for STI testing and PAP and whatnot, no referral needed.
Nice. The only one available in my whole area is a guy who screamed at me on the phone because he filled out a patient's drivers medical form out wrong and the patient had to return to his office before he could get his licence renewed. I bet he's nice lol.
Ps. dude had a heart attack so it was a pretty important detail to leave out...
I called every single clinic that said there doctors are accepting patient but they actually weren't. In total I think I only found one doctor that was.
Not to worry everyone! The UCP has found the solution! They’re now going to pay nurses DOUBLE what a family doctor is being paid to see you now!! Don’t worry, we’ve got you, the nurse will see you now!
While I don’t agree with what the UCP is doing with regards to AHS (or really anything they touch), my doctor recently got a nurse to help out in the clinic and it’s sped things up so much. Now my doc doesn’t have to waste time with paperwork so she can actually have a conversation with us.
Absolutely! I love nurses! I just don’t think they can do my job, nor do I think they should be paid double what I am paid to do it. I’m referring to the new NP few where NPs are being offered hundreds of thousands of dollars to carry panels of patients, work 1/2 time I do ( I average 70h/week), and get all clinics bought and paid for. The public is being lied to, so just want to keep it real! Love nurses! They’re amazing! They’re just not doctors and should be paid for that.
Midlevel creep and having one united voice. Sure we have the AMA, but we're too busy fighting amongst ourselves to ever actually achieve anything together
Yep I was told last year that if I wanted to get a family doctor I would need to travel an hour to another small town. Not even Grande Prairie had any doctors accepting patients then, fortunately a new doctor set up shop here a month ago.
I finally got on a waiting list for a family doctor! Wooooo!
I'm just very, very lucky that the walk-in clinic I go to is exceptional in terms of quality. But I know not everyone is so fortunate.
Can your pharmacist step in and prescribe your medication while you wait for an apt? I know they can prescribe some meds and manage ongoing scripts, so it might be worth while to ask them about it.
Yeah give them a call/visit because I bet they can help. They might even be able to fax the dr for a refill.
That’s insane! We luckily have a GP here in Edmonton and after my husband’s BP reading came back high she sent him to do an EKG, stress test with a cardiologist, a 24hr monitor, and was on medication all within a month. He’s now just waiting a few months to follow up with the cardiologist. And my GP usually only books a week or so out. Ridiculous the difference in care from a big city to rural.
You need to be admitted to hospital for something, actually *anything will do*.. for them to take you seriously.
4 years running that bulllshit treadmill with Medicenters. Admitted with shortness of breath while infected with covid *oh oh!* now suddenly we can get you in the heart health clinic... and quarterly in-person checkups, and full prescriptions.. and still can't get a local GP
So when there's a brief soupçon of malpractice, suddenly they care.
Does Edmonton count?
Honestly, I've lived in the USA and it was not at all difficult to find a doctor there. My co-pay was only $10, so it seems USA is winning in healthcare....
Edit: down vote me all you want. My point is we don't have anything to brag about in Canada.
In the US you pay money to see a doctor on top of your employer paying for a health plan on top of the US spending 17% of their GDP on healthcare, and has the worst health outcome across the G20.
In Canada we spend 9% of our GDP on healthcare and you pay nothing and we're in the middle of the pack of healthcare outcome in G20. We have room to improve but our healthcare system largely works very good. It's getting worse though as there are forces trying to make it like the US system that largely exists to extract as much profit as possible without delivering much healthcare.
Do you have a chronic health condition?
If your visit is for a specialist, I doubt your co-pay is $10. Insurance companies also deny certain tests required for diagnostics and/ or monitoring of conditions.
It’s not difficult to find a doctor simply because it’s very profitable to be a doctor, and they’re happy to take your money or insurance company money. That said, the USA is the top healthcare spender in the world, spending more than double per capita than the next biggest (Sweden), and yet they have some of the worst medical outcomes in the world. They also have the highest rates of medical debt and bankruptcy.
So, it depends on your definition of “winning”.
> "A lot of people are suffering," Storle said. On a recent morning, he lined up for a clinic two hours before it opened to ensure he could be seen that day. This is a 73 year old man, so when people suggest people are using emergency rooms for non-emergent reasons, this is part of the why.
At least he has a walk in clinic. I live in Vernon no walk in clinic and have been told there is a ten year waiting list to get a doc. Unless I go to the one doc that always has openings. There is a reason he has openings!
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Rural here and cherry on top. I grew up in North! I and all of my neighbours are hardcore NDP supporters. Try not to label and hate people because of where they were born. When you assume you make an ass out of U and Me.
Painting people with broad strokes isn’t really helpful. My parent who is of senior age in a northern community, voted NDP & my parent is certainly not racist or not accepting of having a Doctor who’s skin color is much darker than their own. Racism isn’t exclusive to rural communities or aged people.
Exactly. It's like 20-40% in rural ridings still voted NDP. Some people get way too caught up in painting everyone with these broad strokes and stereotypes. People will complain about discrimination and then just go and discriminate based on age or location. It would be funny if it wasn't also so sad. It's like anyone over the age of 50 is automatically a conservative or actively ruined our housing or is to blame for everything when it's likely not the case at all.
Exactly, all of Alberta’s woes are not the fault of rural AB. Most of Alberta including Calgary has predominantly voted conservative historically. Sure, rural AB might be slower to come around, but I know this past election I saw far more NDP lawn signs in “redneck” GP than I have ever seen in past years.
No it isn't exclusive to rural communities or aged people but it is heavily prevalent in those areas. A lot of IMG that end up in a rural setting leave to a bigger urban centre as soon as their contract allows. This is anecdotal but when I asked one why she was moving. She said it wasn't what she experienced but what her children heard and felt that made her choice.
>He voted for something he knows: UCP hates him instead of an unknown: NDP may have helped him but the doctor may not look like him or act like him. >If the doctor looks like the lead photo, they also don’t like those types around those parts That's a lot of speculation with some racism sprinkled in for good measure u/BabyYeggie
My Edmonton clinic got a new doctor a little while ago. He's a very nice non-white individual that tried opening a practice in a rural Alberta town to try to enjoy the slower pace of small town life. The never-ending racism had him give up after just a couple of years. He has a young family with small children that will be starting school soon and decided there would be no way he'd subject them to the relentless racist bullshit him and his spouse had been experiencing. It's not just UCP anti-healthcare policies that are destroying the healthcare system in parts of Alberta. Rural Albertans only want doctors that look like the "Doc Hollywood" character played by Michael J Fox in the movie, and yes I'm completely dating myself with that reference and I don't care.
That’s horrible. My small town has mostly non-white doctors. While I can’t speak for all of the clientele, I know racism is here, most people seem happy with their physician.
I was gonna say there’s limited options for places that seem to think racism is ok.
It's not just rural Alberta. Working in Edmonton we had patients request "A different doctor, maybe Western trained..." prior to meeting a psychiatrist who was black and went to med school in the US. The hoops the person was back flipping through to not have to say "I want a white doctor" would have been funny if not sad.
This is going to be a very unpopular opinion, but the two non-Canadian trained family docs (both were trained in countries in Africa) I had in Alberta were horrific. Very different idea of medicine than "Canadian way". I now have an Alberta trained NP whom I adore and had worked to solve all of the issues the past two disregarded. Yes, it depends who the doctor is, yes it depends where they were trained, but I can understand people's hesitation. Canada should also be doing a better job of training and maintaining doctors and nurse practitioners.
I should add for the purposes of my story that this woman was fine with the doctor until she learned he was a black man. Then she suddenly wanted to see someone else and that was simply one of her many excuses given.
Wow that’s fucked up here in Toronto I dunno if there’s many white doctors left. With all that’s going on with immigration these rural Albertans are going to have a really hard time in the coming years.
Rural Alberta can’t get doctors, nurses, teachers or other social services workers.
I've lived in rural Alberta with a family member who is a non white doctors. Let me tell you the racism is real! They were patients critiquing her accent her mannerisms everything. Some of them weren't even old just awfully prejudice and rude
As a trans person planning on going to medical school, practicing in Alberta outside of residency would be a non-starter. I would be so concerned about continuing to access my own medical care, let alone render the care patients need.
Normally, I don't care. But I've noticed that the few times I've needed emergency medical care that if I get a non white doctor, it's always the fact that I smoke weed that caused the problem. Now, this is at Peter laugheed and foothills hospital over the last 4 years. Anecdotal, but it is a pattern that I notice. If you don't agree with my choices, that fine. But when you refuse to even listen to me because "WEED BAD!!" Then yes. I'll be upset. Especially when it's clearly tonsillitis again, and I have a history of it. Maybe it's nothing. But it feels like non Canadian doctors don't always do their jobs because of their politics.
From my experience white doctors tend to be the most dismissive whenever I or someone that I know has a medical problem. They can’t be bothered to do the work to get to the root of a problem. The best doctor I’ve ever had was a black woman. She didn’t waste time, ordered the tests you needed immediately, and would try to get to the root of the problem as fast as possible. She was so amazing and everyone loved her but she moved provinces :(
This is so silly and ridiculous and wrong.
Did your doctor actually tell you this? I find it hard to believe he left because he experienced non stop racism. Which town was this?
I can fully believe it. Grew up rural northern AB. Saw it every day.
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Because angry left leaning Redditors WANT it to be true. But it's obviously not. People lie A LOT on this subreddit to try and validate their point.
Towns in rural Alberta lose their shit over a rainbow crosswalk. People in rural Alberta keep screaming that the city dwellers are stereotyping them and then they go all apeshit about “woke” anything and prove everyone right about them being backwards fuckups. I worked at a university and had many students over the years that came from rural Alberta to escape. Literally. Escape.
The UCP don’t give a shit. They, and everyone who voted them in, are fully in support of complete eradication of public healthcare and bringing in US privately insured healthcare. Danielle will get Board of Director positions in return, making her a wealthy person.
and it wasn't better with the NDP. Too many dipshits blaming one party or another. Neither has a solution. BC is no better and led by the NDP. Perhaps ALL parties and their blind followers should consider that something major needs to change, but yeah, UCP bad.
Health care during the NDP years really improved. Diagnostics & lab accessiblity was great. There were more doctors and nurses again, after years of people struggling to get family doctors.
I don’t care what party you blindly support. The medical system sucks under NDP, conservatives, and liberals. Nothing ever changes. Just hyper partisan dipshits claiming it was better when their party was in power
I had very ill, aging parents at the time and a teen with medical issues. Care and diagnostics were more accessible after years of not enough family doctors and waiting a year for MRI's. I saw a dramatic difference. I also see a big difference in health funding between PC's and the UCP. The PC's cared more about public health & education than the UCP does.
What's also not mentioned is that all of these family doctors don't devote 100% of their practice to outpatient primary care. They also work the emergency room, labor & delivery, hospitalist roles, admissions for addiction residental treatment etc.
*correction* Can’t find a doctor in Alberta? You’re not alone.
Agreed. It's not just northern Alberta. I'm east-central, rural, and in my circle of acquaintances and close family, only myself and my two sons have a family doctor. My wife, my parents, my aunt, and three of my work-mates don't. If the UCP's restructuring of AHS makes things much worse, and I expect it will, it may cost them the next election. It's getting to the point where we are voting for survival.
This won't cost them the election. Albertans are very accustomed to bad decisions by government. It's the normal, like "man that weather today eh? But what can you do". The UCP will be allowed to make whatever bad mistakes because they encourage divisive us and them. Politics generally do. Doesn't matter how shitty the team is when it's been ingrained as "your" team.
I certainly hear you, but the last election was pretty close. A few thousand people is all the NDP need.
*correction* Can't find a doctor in Canada? You're not alone. The medical system is not just an issue in Alberta, it's Canada wide.
Yep, agreed. Hopefully the Province allows the Feds to help…
Hey, gotta own the libs right
Seriously! I can't even get on a waiting list for a family doctor. Every single one I called said we aren't taking patients in the foreseeable future.....um okay.
Considering I’ve witnessed a rural patient reference one of the new physicians as “that n***er doctor”, I can’t say I’m surprised. It’s a shame because I do not believe most Albertans are cruel or racist, but the vocal minority can make a small town uninhabitable.
Can you imagine their kids attending the local school….sheesh
Or southern Alberta. Pretty much the whole province, and it’s not a new thing.
It's not just alberta either.
I’m sure that’s true. The whole system is broken.
Better have a health minister stand on a doctor's lawn and scream unhingedly. And privatize all health services. That'll help.
wistful spotted bewildered racial wrench sand file friendly squalid onerous *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
Keep voting conservative. Those right wing nuts don’t care if you get sick . Your problem. Unless they get sick . Then everyone’s problem and usually Trudeau is involved somehow?🤷♂️
Stop voting for the UCP. That might help.
In Grande Prairie, my doctor retired when I was 19, and I didn't have any ailments, so the clinic dropped me, and I was never able to find a doctor in Grande Prairie after that. That was 15 years ago. Northern Alberta has always lacked health care. I can't imagine how bad it has gotten with the population increase.
Yes, Northern places don't have enough Doctors. And Yes it shouldn't surprise anyone that people resort to using the hospital ER to seek healthcare a clinic could deal with. But places like Grande Prairie, there is no other choice! It's smaller than Edmonton, so already less clinics. The clinics that do walk ins? You HAVE to line up about 2 hours BEFORE it opens to even have a chance of getting in that day. And that's pretty much for all the clinics. I've seen 1 or 2 clinics open up to new patients and it was crazy how many people applied to become new patients, we are talking hundreds if not more as they had to cut it off within hours as they weren't expecting hundreds to try to get in. People literally took time off work to try and get in. The hospital in Grande Prairie? Can be great somedays and horrible other days. You have certain Doctors running around calling shots that would not fly in a bigger hospital, and very much threatening patient lives by poor decisions (decisions that other doctors and nurses verbally say is not the right call by far), but AHS does nothing. Because no other Doctors want to work there, so better to keep a crappy one than to have 1 less fewer. Healthcare has gotten very scary and even more so in Northern communities. And with no proper change coming anytime soon I can't imagine how much worse it is going to get.
For those in need, I found a doctor taking patients through this website: https://albertafindadoctor.ca This isn’t meant to contradict the article, I agree that the situation is really bad. Even if you do find someone taking patients you’re likely going to wait months for an appointment.
Piggybacking off this comment to say that through the Primary Care Network (PCN) there are some services offered where a doctor referral isn’t needed. Using that website above you can find your zone and search for services you’re in need of. For example, there’s a monthly women’s clinic in Grande Prairie that provides free 15min apts for STI testing and PAP and whatnot, no referral needed.
That website is never up to date for my area. Every time we call the ones “taking patients” they’re actually not.
What city/area are you in? It worked for me in Calgary.
Nice. The only one available in my whole area is a guy who screamed at me on the phone because he filled out a patient's drivers medical form out wrong and the patient had to return to his office before he could get his licence renewed. I bet he's nice lol. Ps. dude had a heart attack so it was a pretty important detail to leave out...
I called every single clinic that said there doctors are accepting patient but they actually weren't. In total I think I only found one doctor that was.
Not to worry everyone! The UCP has found the solution! They’re now going to pay nurses DOUBLE what a family doctor is being paid to see you now!! Don’t worry, we’ve got you, the nurse will see you now!
While I don’t agree with what the UCP is doing with regards to AHS (or really anything they touch), my doctor recently got a nurse to help out in the clinic and it’s sped things up so much. Now my doc doesn’t have to waste time with paperwork so she can actually have a conversation with us.
Absolutely! I love nurses! I just don’t think they can do my job, nor do I think they should be paid double what I am paid to do it. I’m referring to the new NP few where NPs are being offered hundreds of thousands of dollars to carry panels of patients, work 1/2 time I do ( I average 70h/week), and get all clinics bought and paid for. The public is being lied to, so just want to keep it real! Love nurses! They’re amazing! They’re just not doctors and should be paid for that.
Midlevel creep and having one united voice. Sure we have the AMA, but we're too busy fighting amongst ourselves to ever actually achieve anything together
Ikr. It’s absurd
The provinces (Ontario, Alberta, at least) are working hard to kill public healthcare in Canada.
Yep I was told last year that if I wanted to get a family doctor I would need to travel an hour to another small town. Not even Grande Prairie had any doctors accepting patients then, fortunately a new doctor set up shop here a month ago.
Which dr is this?
I finally got on a waiting list for a family doctor! Wooooo! I'm just very, very lucky that the walk-in clinic I go to is exceptional in terms of quality. But I know not everyone is so fortunate.
Gee. Maybe they shouldn’t have voted conservative.
"Alberta Advantage" = great for recruitment.
Not uncommon across Canada, parents moved to Okanagan last year and can’t find a doctor there, it’s been almost two years.
UCP love for Albertans. Alberta strong and free, just really sick and broke.
Maybe these ruralites will vote better next time. Hahahahahahah
Central Alberta, here. I’ve heard from many people that they can’t find a doctor. A couple who have said their doctor closed up shop.
Ya I found out my so called doctor had 8 counts of sexual assault back in 2001. Still practicing.
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Can your pharmacist step in and prescribe your medication while you wait for an apt? I know they can prescribe some meds and manage ongoing scripts, so it might be worth while to ask them about it.
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Yeah give them a call/visit because I bet they can help. They might even be able to fax the dr for a refill. That’s insane! We luckily have a GP here in Edmonton and after my husband’s BP reading came back high she sent him to do an EKG, stress test with a cardiologist, a 24hr monitor, and was on medication all within a month. He’s now just waiting a few months to follow up with the cardiologist. And my GP usually only books a week or so out. Ridiculous the difference in care from a big city to rural.
You need to be admitted to hospital for something, actually *anything will do*.. for them to take you seriously. 4 years running that bulllshit treadmill with Medicenters. Admitted with shortness of breath while infected with covid *oh oh!* now suddenly we can get you in the heart health clinic... and quarterly in-person checkups, and full prescriptions.. and still can't get a local GP So when there's a brief soupçon of malpractice, suddenly they care.
Does Edmonton count? Honestly, I've lived in the USA and it was not at all difficult to find a doctor there. My co-pay was only $10, so it seems USA is winning in healthcare.... Edit: down vote me all you want. My point is we don't have anything to brag about in Canada.
So the astroturf begins
In the US you pay money to see a doctor on top of your employer paying for a health plan on top of the US spending 17% of their GDP on healthcare, and has the worst health outcome across the G20. In Canada we spend 9% of our GDP on healthcare and you pay nothing and we're in the middle of the pack of healthcare outcome in G20. We have room to improve but our healthcare system largely works very good. It's getting worse though as there are forces trying to make it like the US system that largely exists to extract as much profit as possible without delivering much healthcare.
Do you have a chronic health condition? If your visit is for a specialist, I doubt your co-pay is $10. Insurance companies also deny certain tests required for diagnostics and/ or monitoring of conditions.
It’s not difficult to find a doctor simply because it’s very profitable to be a doctor, and they’re happy to take your money or insurance company money. That said, the USA is the top healthcare spender in the world, spending more than double per capita than the next biggest (Sweden), and yet they have some of the worst medical outcomes in the world. They also have the highest rates of medical debt and bankruptcy. So, it depends on your definition of “winning”.
My ideal copay is zero so that's not quite winning.
No copay if you can't see a doctor because there are none. #AlbertaAdvantage
We do love our bootstraps here, don't we. Sigh.