François Legault says that family physicians must “contribute more to the collective effort” by taking more patients, by reaching an “acceptable threshold” of 1000 patients.
Hearing this, I wonder what it will mean to my wife. And I’m afraid, quite simply, that she won’t be able to take more. I’m not saying she can’t take more patients. Because she does that week after week. She takes more patients. No, I fear that she no longer has the strength to hear the government use strictly accounting arguments without taking into account her own reality and the reality of many other family physicians in Quebec.
I am talking about young women at the start of their careers. I’m talking about my wife, also at the start of her career. After a little less than three years of practice, she still has more than 500 patients in her care. I don’t know the exact number, but it must be around 550. It is not a lot, some might say. It is far from the “acceptable threshold”, others will say.
No, because my wife has a mixed practice. In addition to her work as a family doctor, she does pregnancy follow-ups (pregnant women do not count among her registered patients) and she attends many deliveries. Every week, she is on call for 24 hours, during which time she is often in the hospital during the 24 hours.
So my wife regularly works 60 hours a week. And it should contribute more … according to Mr. Legault, and according to the plethora of columnists who like to use doctors as scapegoats for all the ills of the health system as often as possible.
I would like to point out that she is the mother of two young children. And my wife is not the only young mother who is just starting out as a general practitioner. The vast majority of family medicine graduates are women. At the start of their career, these women must do a minimum of 12 hours of specific medical activities in the hospital or in a CHSLD per week.
My wife is an exceptional doctor. She’s a perfectionist, she’s human, she’s dedicated. She’s not the type to prescribe antibiotics in five minutes for nothing; she does pedagogy. She is taking the time it takes to deal with the depressions, which have spiked in numbers with the pandemic. It does not carry out chain medicine, in order to satisfy an “acceptable” productivity for managers. She practices humane and profitable long-term medicine; it takes the time it takes.
She loves what she does.
However, these days she can’t take more.