Doctors leaving Ontario for jobs elsewhere

Although the provincial government has spent billions of dollars trying to fix Ontario's doctor shortage, one million Ontarians remain without a family doctor.

"It's a challenge. It's a challenge which we are very much geared towards dealing with and there's a very concerted effort being made as to how we address the issue of doctor shortages," said Yasir Naqvi, Liberal MPP for Ottawa Centre.

In a recent survey by the Ontario Medical Association, doctors who left Ontario for the United States say they would only return to the province if they were offered a competitive salary and better resources.

Janice Willet, president of the Ontario Medical Association, says many doctors who leave Ontario are frustrated with the day to day practice of medicine and say they've lost a sense of professionalism.

"When you lose that satisfaction in your job it's so much easier to look elsewhere and if you find it elsewhere you will go," said Willet.

Dr. Chris Carruthers, who is chief of staff at the Ottawa Hospital, says higher salaries and lower tax rates also tempt doctors to leave Ontario.

"Alberta has the advantage of not only being able to pay their physicians well, as for a very low tax environment, but I think for many physicians . . . what we compete with is equipment and facilities."

But the government says investment in better equipment and medical facilities is already happening.

"You see the investment," said Naqvi. "Just drive through Ottawa alone and you see the number of cranes that there are now in front of every single hospital."

Another factor that plays into Ontario's doctor shortage is the high demands placed on those in the medical profession.

More than 50 per cent of doctors under age 35 are now women, many of whom are struggling to create a balance between work and family life.

"They're not willing to work 80 or 90 hour weeks and that's not bad. They got families and they want to have balanced lifestyles," said Carruthers.

The government says it's working towards easing the working conditions in the medical field by creating family health teams, made up of doctors, nurse practitioners, nurses, social workers and dieticians.

Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty has described the health teams as "kind of like one stop shopping" for family medical care.

"If your doctor isn't available on that particular occasion, there will always be another doctor who is available and who can turn his or her notes over to your own doctor," said McGuinty when the health teams were first created in 2005.

There are currently eight family health teams in Ottawa, which are credited with helping 10,000 patients get a doctor.

Ontario health officials say they hope the practice of using family health teams will help lure doctors back to the province.

The government and Health Force Ontario has gone to the United States to try to recruit doctors and that's been working to a certain degree, said Willet.

"If we keep 100 per cent of our new graduates in the province, if we work at retaining those physicians bridging, we have a much better chance of not being in a really bad place in seven to eight years" she said.

With a report from CTV's Aliya Jiwan