As soon as I arrived in Bergen as a foreign student, I was assigned a family doctor.
Everyone residing in Norway has the right to be followed by a doctor, including foreign students and temporary workers. Having lived there for nine years, I can attest to the impressive efficiency and accessibility of the health system considered to be one of the best in the world. Some ideas from this Nordic country can enrich the current debate on general practitioners in Quebec.
In Norway, the number of patients followed by each family doctor is public information. There is an online portal where citizens can choose a doctor. This register displays the address of the clinic, the number of patients registered, and the total number of places available for each general practitioner, for example: 1446/1500.
Doctors decide how many patients they accept on their list based on their other professional obligations, such as hospital duties. The Health Directorate considers 1500 patients as the norm for a year of full-time work, while the Association of General Practitioners recommends 1200. In 2020, there were 1068 patients per doctor on average1, following a downward trend over the years.
Citizens can therefore choose and change a doctor on this portal. It is possible to register on the waiting list if the chosen doctor has no more places. A text message will be sent when a place becomes available.
A doctor must offer an appointment within 72 hours, at most. Usually, an appointment is offered within 24 to 36 hours. If the doctor is not available, another doctor in the clinic will do the consultation for him. Appointments last exactly 15 minutes and usually start at the specified time. The Norwegian system therefore allows workers to consult effectively, minimizing lost working hours.
All prescriptions are added to the electronic file that all pharmacies can consult directly. For a renewal, just write a message to your doctor on the portal.
The strength of the Norwegian model is based on transparency and information sharing. In this spirit, openly communicating the number of patients of general practitioners in Quebec would be a first step towards an adequate diagnosis of the flaws in the system. Transparency is a principle of sound management and the disclosure of this information should be seen as an opportunity to improve the network.
Some Norwegian figures
- Health spending represents 12.7% of GDP, excluding the oil sector, compared to 11.7% in Quebec.
- Per capita, there are 1.6 times more doctors and 2.2 times more nurses than in Quebec.
- The average remuneration of general practitioners is 2.6 times the country’s average salary compared to 5.5 times in Quebec (2017).
What do you think? Express your opinion