Q: “There are people who wait a lot longer than average. I am 74 years old, I have brain damage, asthma, cholesterol problems and high blood pressure. I have been waiting for a family doctor for five years. ”
Marc
A: What ? Do you have to wait “only” a year and a half to have a family doctor? Many readers have asked me where I got this number, them who have been waiting for much longer.
“I am 59 years old and my request for a family doctor dates from November 20, 2016, that is to say for nearly 1800 days”, says Maurice, of Boucherville.
“My wife and I have been on the list to have a doctor for four years, even though I have four bypass surgeries and have diabetes. Discouraged, ”adds Gabriel, from Saint-Bruno-de-Montarville.
The wait is indeed 457 days for vulnerable patients and 605 days for non-vulnerable. But this is an average for all of Quebec.
The waiting list is longer in certain regions such as Abitibi-Témiscamingue (786 days for non-vulnerable patients), Montérégie-Est (749 days) and Montérégie-Center (745 days).
It is therefore more than two years that you have to wait at the Access to a Family Doctor (GAMF). On average…
But Michel, him, has been waiting since 2015. The worst: “I had to cancel my registration for the family doctor that I had in Montreal” to be on the list after moving to Montérégie, he denounces.
However, the Ministry of Health and Social Services confirmed to me that the local medical coordinator can “make a patient eligible for GAMF, if he changes his place of residence and the distance makes consultations with the place of residence difficult. practice of his current doctor ”.
This discretionary measure would benefit from being applied more.
There is also sand in the gears for patients whose doctors are retiring, as Robert testifies. Her mother-in-law’s doctor had warned her a year before she retired. But the box office refused to register it proactively.
It is strange, because, here again, the Ministry of Health confirmed to me that “the doctor who plans to retire within two years can make his clientele eligible for GAMF, while continuing his consultations with his clientele. “.
Still, Robert’s mother-in-law has not yet found a doctor. She is 90 years old. She suffers from diabetes and osteoarthritis. And she has loss of vision and hearing.
“We’re really at the end of our rope,” says Robert.
Frankly, there is something.
Learn about the GAMF rules Learn more about the GAMF rules