A new study released on Thursday shows that the number of physicians in Canada has increased by 8 per cent and the physician-to-patient ratio went up by 195 for every 100,000 Canadians.
The Canadian Institute for Health Information released a
study on Thursday showing the number of physicians in Canada has increased 8 per cent over the past five years and the physician-to-population ratio has grown to 195 physicians for every 100,000 Canadians, which is up from 189 in 2004.
Between 2004 and 2008, the amount of physicians practicing medicine grew from 60,612 to 65,440. Incidentally, the population increased by 4.3 per cent over the same time period. However, Yvonne Rosehart, the program lead of health human resources at CIHI, said the number of doctors practicing in Canada goes up annually.
“Over the (past) 30 years, the number of doctors has always been increasing but, for a large portion of that time, it was increasing at a rate similar to the population. I think having more doctors in the workforce is definitely a good sign.”
Dr. Cal Gutkin, Executive Director and CEO of the College of Family Physicians of Canada, told
The Canadian Press, “We have obviously woken up to the fact in the last few years that we have this significant shortage of physicians. And there are various strategies that have started to be put into place that I think are beginning to produce some results, so I think that can only be interpreted as an early piece of good news.”
Medical school enrolment also increased, which means, according to the
Star Phoenix, this could increase the number of physicians across Canada over the next decade. The number of med students went up from 8,236 to 9,640 between 2004 and 2007.
The study further shows that physicians are retiring at later ages than other health professionals in Canada. Generally, this is due to the length of time it takes to become fully educated and trained, which makes them retire at an older age.
Between 1978 and 2008, the average age of general practitioners increased by 5.6 years to 49 and the average age of specialists went up by 3.4 years to 50.6. “The physician workforce in Canada is getting older; however, the data shows that doctors' retirement patterns are very different than the patterns of other professionals,” Rosehart said.
More women are continuing to enter the physician workforce. Between 2004 and 2008, the number of male physicians increased 3.8 per cent but the statistics show that females grew 16.3 per cent. In 2008, two out of five physicians and one-third of specialists were women.
“Many of the small-and medium-size communities have shortages of specific kinds of physicians, for example, communities needing orthopedic surgeons or ... general surgeons. That kind of request is still certainly a major part of what we're trying to address,” said Dr. Bruce Fleming, Executive Co-Ordinator for the Council of Undergraduate Associate Deans at UBC
