The lack of access to a family doctor is one of the Quebec health system’s chronic problems.

And despite all the government’s attempts to cure the ailment, the prognosis only seems to get worse.

The latest checkup by the Institut de la statistique du Québec revealed how much the situation has been deteriorating. It shows the proportion of Quebecers assigned to a family physician dropped to 72 per cent last year from 82 per cent in 2019. And that was actually a high for the decade. It had climbed steadily from 66 per cent in 2013, but then drooped again over the past five years.

Like most chronic conditions, the causes are no mystery.

According to the ISQ, the main reason is that there are still more physicians retiring or leaving the public health system than are being recruited into family medicine.

But that doesn’t tell the whole story.

First off, newly minted doctors have other responsibilities the health system depends on, like working in long-term care, birthing centres or emergency rooms. So the new recruits being counted on to provide relief have less time to see patients in their offices.

But beyond time constraints, young doctors have been giving family medicine the cold shoulder in recent years, despite the government opening up more residencies in the field.

This year,

© Montreal Gazette