Families looking for a physician in Saskatoon are out of luck, as there are currently no clinics in the city accepting new patients.
Clicking on the link on the Saskatchewan Health Authority website that is supposed to provide a list of clinics in Saskatoon which are accepting new patients brings people to a one-page document that recommends every Canadian have a family doctor before saying: “Currently, there are no clinics accepting new patients.”
Dr. Andries Muller, a family physician and president of the Saskatchewan College of Family Physicians, said the lack of family physician services in Saskatoon is the result of a perfect storm of issues.
“There was always a shortage of family doctors, but now with the pandemic and everything else that’s happened, many people were burned out and they just couldn’t work anymore,” he said.
Hey why do we let the Doctors Union (Saskatchewan Medical Association) control the number of spots that the university is allowed to provide to teach new doctors?
I am sure the university could find teachers and services to train more Doctors.
Their perfect storm is them preventing a larger number of doctors being trained to maximize their income by limiting quantity of Doctors. When the next round of fee negotiations come around, it will be we need to be paid more to attract more Dr’s, when it fact we can’t teach the numbers we need already.
They can’t, though. The med schools don’t have enough instructors as it is – there is next to no capacity to bring in more students. This isn’t like training worker ants like engineers.
People have no clue how bad things are with Cdn health care. They are going to get way worse in the next five years.
Well then they should train more trainers. Increasing teaching capabilities isn’t open heart surgery. Both University’s run teaching programs, get some Dr’s into them.
Why would any university hire more instructors if they are not allowed to teach more students?
Get the SMA out of the control of what the university sets for enrollment in the medical fields.
So sick of “they can’t”. They can, if anyone truly wanted to. And if “They Can’t” be part of the solution, piss off.
Part of the problem is that qualified instructors are mostly doctors.
And they can earn much more by practicing medicine than by teaching.
In Manitoba specialists were given perks like free library privileges, use of the gym facilities for workouts (at the same reduced fees are union staff), and the ability to see some patients at the hospital for regular care instead of having to rent an office and set up a private practice. It takes time to train residents but most did it only for the perks and the prestige and the sheer pleasure of teaching. A new dean was brought in to save money and the first thing he did was have a big meeting in 2010 which everyone had to attend and he announced all these specialists were stealing from the government and they would now be required to take all their patients outside of the hospital in offices they paid for and pay for their library privileges and lose the extras. A whole bunch of specialists basically said “FU” and left the province. Why should they put in all the time and effort required to train students and residents when there were no benefits to doing so? This meant many of the departments lost their certification to train students as specialists. Another aspect of training specialists is to have them work with PhD medical scientists doing research but the same Dean got rid of any scientists who weren’t bringing in at least 50% of their salary in grant money which included a substantial cut for “overheads” to the Dean’s office. No research, no certification. And they got rid of any staff on salary that could be replaced by fee for service MDs such as genetic counsellors so things like routine counselling for an amniocentesis was done of highly trained genetic specialists instead of a counsellor. I doubt University of Manitoba was the only one to do stuff like this. Oh and the new dean also got a wonderful new refurbished space, three times the staff and also appointed new deans with $400,000/year salaries including a “Dean of Professionalism” whose job was to develop and then enforce a dress code meaning scientists had to wear suits to the lab instead of jeans and t shirts and other fun stuff like that.
That would cost money, and there isn’t any. How much tax are you prepared to pay to get a “free doctor”?
great quote
I have a file with great quotes that I find on the internet. How much tax are you prepared to pay to get a “free doctor”? is now part of my collection
They already paid the tax and they get “no doctor”.
Taxation Is Theft.
There is more to teaching medicine than class and book work. Much of the learning is obtained through hands on field work or an apprenticeship of sorts and there are limited hospital spots for medical students.
If you dig down you will find many of the public health doctors have very limited practical hands on knowledge either by inclination or inability to get hospital spots. We have all seen what happened with their Covid guidance. Would you like to have poorly trained and inexperienced doctors working on you or your loved ones?
It is a rationing system. If SK allows more doctors to be trained, they will want to work. If they work, they want to get paid which is an expense to SK.
It is government medical schools preparing government workers to do government approved work and government approved rates.
Increasing the length of the queue is how socialism works.
Exactement!
Canada’s “Free Healthcare” is Rationed Health Care. Rationed. Rationed. Rationed.
With NO Opposition, co-opted Media and a country full of intelligent Me-Firsters; the Liberal Party, the political arm of your Laurention Owners can always get away with The Big Lie.
Case in point. New federal Liberal climate plan to help NB homeowners, of which there are 300,000, has enough funds to help 10,000.
And that is BEFORE distribution expenses(ie Liberal pamphlets, Liberal Printers, Liberal Advertisers, Librano Baksheesh etc, etc, etc)!!!
Canada is a broken country with a LIE ALL THE TIME MEDIA.
Joke Constitution, Joke Courts, Joke Government, Joke Media, Joke Country.
Like almost every other licensing body their aim is to maximize the profits of those licensed by restricting entry.
BINGO …. I saw this 40 years ago with guys I was in Uni with taking medicine …. if you want something to be low cost produce a lot of them and that economic fact applies to widgets and doctors.
this is exactly the case for RN’s. And the universities favour foreign over canadian because of the large tuition
Howaboutit:
You are correct, and these naysayers have jellied brains.
There is a demand for doctors, there is a demand for instructors. Free markets would fix things if the AMA, CMA, SMA, the state and our commie learning institutions etc were not wrecking things.
You will get as much care as your bonehead gift allows and not more.
Demand has nothing to do with it.
You cant bv afford Anerican health care so dont get yr underwear in a knot shouting about it.
The real difference is Americans dont act like sheep and make their demands painfully heard. Your problem is you bv are Canadian. Youve got the system you deserve
Be glad you are not in Nova Scotia….relatives there have not had a family doctor for years.
In NB, 50,000 to 60,000 NBers are and have been without a doctor for the last 30-40 years. The disposables.
There is NOBODY in this country speaking for regular people. Nobody.
Wonder why there has been NO POST MORTEM on the virus scamdemic?
Prepare for the Sequel.
Today, our local recycler is closed due to, wait for it, The Chinese Rona.
During the last scamdemic, 100 (100!!) people in the province in ICU caused the ostensible Conservative Premier to threaten “The Other” and expose his Inner Adolf.
Voting IS NOT going to cure this.
Oh Robespierre wherefore art thou?
Government employees retire early because the work is so exacting and workloads are so heavy. Hazards of the job.
Who needs a Doctor? Just let the internet diagnose and cure you! WebMD probably “diagnoses” 90% of the people web surfing with cancer every day! Got an ache? Pain? Got a red spot? or a cough? One trip to WebMD and you’ll receive your diagnosis of rare, terminal, 1-month-to-live, cancer.
Socialized medicine will soon degenerate into e-diagnosis and e-treatment. Because the internet can do anything … except fix your leaky pipes.
WebMD is a useless bland tool, that only promotes the usual trope. Hippocrates, the father of medicine, and still the author of the oath that many today still take, always advocated for exhausting every safe avenue of cure before going to extremes. He believed that if the combination of nutrition and exercise were achieved, most medical issues would resolve themselves. As an aside, I can confirm he is very correct.
People go to e-diagnosis most times because they want to believe the problem is not of their doing. Fat, diabetic, alcoholics wanting to place the blame elsewhere hoping there is some rare curable thing they can fix by visiting a doctor. Even a visit to the doctors though, results in a prescription instead of a healthy dose of reality. Get off the couch, stop stuffing your mouth, and lose some weight you fat, drunken, bastard, is what they should say.
But I digress.
Precisely. Couldn’t have said it better.
And let me add … Americans (Westerners) aren’t dying of chemicals and fossil fuel emissions as so popularly believed. Overall, we are living much, much, longer than ever … once you correct for violent inner city gunplay and poor people not using all the FREE medical services available to them. We are dying of yummy food. And lots of it. A nation dying of gout… who wouldda thought?
There are 53 countries in the world where people live longer than Americans. Americans spend more on healthcare than anywhere in the world. There isn’t much correlation between the two.
You must correct for populations, race and lifestyle. Comparing say a monoculture like Japan to Philadelphia, Chicago, New Orleans, is like comparing atmosphere of the Earth and Moon. There is a 10 year difference between whites and blacks alone. Then there is the preference for fast foods, boxed foods, and sugar. Comparing peoples, should be based upon similar lifestyles, diets and habitats. Traditional farmers, for example, who don’t die in accidents, tend to live a longer than average life, whereas, urban gang bangers rarely live to see 30.
In japan, aged fraud is a real thing. This is where families do not notify government of senior deaths in order to continue collecting money. When auditing began, the government went looking for people in their 140s. They are still combing the records for fraud. A japanese custom of abandoning the old on remote hills is still a thing, and most definitely, not reported.
So … damnned … spot on!!! I wish I had written that! Well done, I. Jane
Thank You.
Dare we hope that limited access to doctors would reverse the trend toward worse diets? When families had to eat what Mother had prepared or else go hungry, obesity was rare. Society placed expectations upon wives and mothers that they would strive to keep their family members healthy even when conditions made it very difficult.
Now that kids wear all the fashionable stuff and have bank balances that would make shop-owners of olde envious, where is the parenting that made doctor visits times of dread or the alternative .. “sissy”?
There’s a shit ton of world-class doctors crossing at Roxton Road every day.
Look at all the gems that are Shiny Pony Approved™!
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/29c784ce61fdb197ed93d14490c0eb3e4ad6d56f1031e6196d642b43091acb81.jpg
Arty…
Damn it, ya made me spew my coffee all over my keyboard….LMAO…lolololol..!!
Without Question..!!…and experienced with phd’s by the boatload.
Many years ago, the government of Ontario decided that it was spending too much on medical costs, so the new plan was to restrict the number of positions in medical school…
and we all know how well that went.
Just print up more diplomas. It works for everything else.
Or it will give Shiny Pony to fast track more from Somalia!
A friend of mine is on a very long waiting list for a family doctor, in the meantime he pays $200 cash per visit to a “nurse-practitioner” for diagnosis and prescriptions.
Yabut! Imagine how bad things would be if Canada’s doctors hadn’t supported all the Wuhan flu crap, eh! (eye roll)
How many doctors are off sick, or working short hours, due to vax adverse effects? How many patients showing up in clinics are suffering from vax AEs? I want honest answers to such questions, but NOBODY is looking into it.
How many dropped dead from the vaccine?
More than a couple. Word gets around, you know?
They tested their gunk on -doctors-. The people who know better than anybody what risks look like were mandated for the jab. And now they wonder why all the doctors stopped working.
Socialism at its finest.
Let me be first to scream at the top of my lungs that YOU JUST WANT AMERICAN STYLE HEALTH CARE!!!
Every discussion of improving the Canadian health care system must include panicked and hysterically stupid screaming about the American health care system.
GPs in BC make a paltry amount when compared to other jobs. The ceiling is 300k a year before expenses which would include salary for office staff, office lease and supplies. I’m sure clearing 200k would be tough. No wonder no one wants to do it. I wouldn’t. I’d do it if I could clear 350 maybe.
Every discussion in BC around this so far is about new care models and other bs when the problem is pay.
MUD – Medically Unassisted Death is easy to implement. Just get rid of doctors.
One of the things that I’ve seen in conversations with people in this field is when a doctor retires he requires 3 new doctors to replace them.
As someone told me “the women don’t want to work that hard, and the men have women who don’t want them to work that hard”.
For the amount of money/resources put into the healthcare system our return is crap. Many Canadians go elsewhere for surgeries etc. Even Mexico can offer superior services. The whole system needs an extreme overhaul. This has been the case for decades.
My buddy just got all his teeth implants done in 3 stages in Puerto Rico …. much cheaper than in Ontario / New Brunswick.
A feature, not a bug, of all centrally planned systems. A friend’s doctor just retired. He is currently trying to find a new one, and has found that many want an application form filled out before they will even consider it.
100% agree that this is inevitable with centrally-planned systems. Even on this board, many comments amount to “if I ran the system, it would be better”. No it would not. The only way to fix it is begin the process of decentralizing and de-regulating, mainly by getting government the hell out of the way until our health care works at least as well as our dental care and veterinary care.
Typical Zoolander Media incompetence.
Not one mention in the story about how many new doctors are being trained here or if they are leaving for green pastures after we pay to train them.
Any high school newspaper reporter could have done a far better job.
I believe the biggest ailment in Canadian Health INDUSTRY is what ails Alberta’s AHS.
An overabundance of middle management that sucks the Provincial till dry and provides SFA for anyones ailments. Look to WHO it is (or WAS), running your province.
If there has been, at any time since Tommy (not dead enough), Douglass an NDP Govt in your province.? Then you can bet that is the BIGGEST part of the issue…and we all know that in the end, it’s always distilled down to the $$$$
Say DANIELLE: How about legislating & OUTLAWING Socialist parties..?
NO Communists, No Socialists, No NDP etc….hell, for that matter, No LIBERALS either..!!
Make my day…
That would be a Zelensky move, ban opposition parties.
No argument Mike..I prolly should said “gee, would that be nice”
Fer the record, am NO fan of that scheeming ex comic nazi…with the 35 m mansion in S. FLA
There is no way to reform the monopoly single payer system that can only control costs through rationing and throwing more money at it results in more bureaucratic capture. Keep it, knowing that it will never be good enough to perform well while allowing private unmandated independent insurance and delivery and let the market deliver the services, or phase it out after that.
I’ve been hearing about our failing system since the 90’s and the reality is that nothing is going to change until it has to, at which point it won’t happen democratically. Much like how “slaying the deficit” in the 90’s was a product of bond markets and bankers making us do it, healthcare will have to be reformed over the protests and screaming of 75% of voters.
In the meantime, we should start looking at more practical solutions. Out of country healthcare for those who can afford it is one topic that should be discussed. Finding workarounds in the system is another. Self-care is another.
Complaining about the status quo is a conservative hobby, but we’re going to need solutions and voting harder isn’t it.
My grandma always said that you’re born alone, and yer gonna die alone.
People should understand this simple fact, for starters.
My GP just retired at 48. Vax injured but refused to admit it(life threatening recurring blood clots that she had never had before – after mandated jabs – requiring months off work. Her cope answer was that many things can cause blood clots). Said she had to re-evaluate what she wanted from life. The answer was not more of the nightmare that is the canadian health care system. Now I have no doctor. The only clinic in town that takes walk-ins has line ups around the building before it opens in the morning.
How do health care systems collapse? Slowly at first – then very quickly.
The system that forced her to get jabbed should simply force her to work. Problem solved!
Just wait a little while, that will be the next genius fix they try.
It worked great in Quebec a couple years ago, when they didn’t have enough ER docs. They just mandated retired/pregnant/old docs back to work. And then were shocked how many told them to step off.
Government-run health care will always be a disaster. Go to private clinics as much as you can. Also, look for a good naturopath. My naturopathic doctor has done me a world of good. In BC at least, naturopaths can also prescribe pharmaceutical drugs. Not that she does very often, but it’s great they have the freedom to do so. If ever there was a time to take care of your own health, it’s now. Eat better, get exercise EVERY day, listen to good music, chill with friends.
Naturopaths are f*cked.
I went to one for Crohn’s disease, and the wanted me to sign a waiver that said if their therapy kills me, they ain’t liable. Talk about a red flag.
That is what socialism does.
Simple as that. Every time it was tried.
But, but, but, the current crop of socialists will do it better. Heh …. yes, my ass.
The socialist bureaucracy eats most of the money, they look after themselves first.
The rich socialist aristocrats get the first crack at service.
The leftovers are for the plebeians.
What’s not to like?
Health Care can be fixed with a $50 fee for every visit.
Yes.
There are many as in many third world people that love to go to the doctor.
Nothing wrong when sick, a lot wrong to socialize.
Somebody in the past proposed $5 a visit, in Alberta, the socialist extremists went completely bonkers, created mass hysteria and that was the end of that.
You are right, it should be instituted as of now.
The problem of course is, the bureaucrats would find a way to blow it, just like that.
That’s the answer. Most people don’t need to go to the doctor. A small fee will cut dr visits by 90 percent and the really sick will still get treated.
Are you a Nurse? Or a Doctor? … you sound highly trained … in reality.
Raised on a farm, always worked, went to college, got a few degrees, made a lot of mistakes, and tried to make the world a better place every day. I put my efforts into helping children, and their success hinges on me being right in the head.
I’ve never had a family doctor in Ontario. We just go to walk in clinics when we need doctors which is pretty rare. There are way too many hypochondriacs out there. 99 percent of the time when you think you need a doctor if you wait a few days you’ll get better. Most people would understand this if doctors’ visits weren’t “free”.
FO Rusty.
I used to work for a big corp.
You wanna work for a big corp and call in sick? Get a doctors note, they say.
So I said OK, and go to the clinic, wait 3 hrs, doc says I have a flu, asks me how many days off I need on the note. I answer, “10 should do it.”
I just needed one or two days off to rest and get over it, but hey, those aholes asked for it.
Moved to SK in June, to a small town just 30 minutes away from Saskatoon. Applied for my SK health card in July and just received it last week. Found a GP willing to take me as a patient – 80 km away in Humboldt. Consider myself lucky to have found a doctor at all.
My doctor recently retired. He is from South Africa. He told me that when he came to Canada he could only practice in a narrow field on a small group of islands off Newfoundland. At the time he was there he told me that Newfoundland had a huge backlog for tonsillectomies. He said he had done hundreds of them in S.A. and could easily cut the waiting list. They wouldn’t allow him to do so…..and here’s the kicker. South African doctors have much more training than those in Canada. They are absolutely top notch.
And with the councils of the various Colleges of Physicians and Surgeons in Canada demanding that doctors do NOT provide exemptions for the “vaccine” (even though the council members had never seen the patients), they need to be hauled on the carpet and horsewhipped…..publicly.
Tonsillectomies were routine and common when I was a kid. Since that time they’ve determined that they’re pretty much useless and they are barely done anymore. I would question the training and knowledge of any doctor performing “routine” tonsillectomies.
See. Theres another gem for you. In the bad old days of diphtheria, kids died like flies in the spring. Recurrent pharyngitis ( what antibiotics? In the 40s are earlier).you acted .
In fact , another disease , osteomyelitis. used to KILL kids. Doesnt now , and not because of drugs, something changed, in the kids or the bacterium. Polio was defeated by indoor flush bv toilets not the vaccine. Didnt know that did you.
Tommy Douglas , sainted socialist of yore. had his osteomyelitis drained for free in Scotland. So he grows up and goes to war w Docs. Thanks Tommy. Not Dead Enough.
Did you know that?
So, yesterday we/I saw a rather insane announcement that the college of Physicians & Surgeons (Ontario), was promoting psychotherapy along side the drugging of those deemed Vaxxine hesitant.
Can anyone corroborate this seeming Mengele type Insanity..?
Yes I saw it too. It’s real. Get rid of our anxiety about the vax by medicating us.
Yes, I saw it too. Seems people have completely lost their minds. It’s almost like they’re drinking Flint bottled water.
I carry no water for the College. They annoy.
But without them youd be looking at primitives with clay body paint shaking the death bone and burning feathers.
Armies need Provosts
Docs need a group that puts The Fear of God right behind them.
They stand between you and Chaos.
The shortage of doctors is due to our broken socialist healthcare system.
The recent even-greater-shortage of doctors has to do with so many of them being fired for refusing to be poisoned as a new condition of employment. In addition to the dead and dying as a result of complying with the new condition of employment. Much the same in airports, education, and anywhere else people were forced out.
All caused by treasonous POS’s in positions of power, pushing the Coronahoax.
The job sucked donkey balls looong before Covid
Over crowded and crying broke at the best of times.. Did you think? that encouraging everybody with the flu to call 911 was a good idea?..
Canada lost over 1000 doctors last year to unknown causes.. As in dead.. Pretty sure working in a clinic is about as much fun as McDonalds on a Saturday night..
Money grubbing hero’s, every last one of them.. I have trust issues..
A 1,000? Where did you get that number?
Is this yet another global ‘scare of the week”?
Here in Oz we have lately been subjected to “news” that there is a rapidly-declining number of medical graduates ging into private practice as “General Practitioners”. Independent family doctors.
What is REALLY going on; if anything?
Romans had Greeks as physicians. Every one, a slave.
Perhaps this might be a useful angle to consider.
We have brains and the internet, not to mention the Merck Manual and the Compendium of Pharmaceutical Substances, which, between them , gives your average Joe enough to take care of 99% of ailments, and that last 1%, well, that’s why we have doctors.
Oh, but I forget, you can’t buy pharma products without a doc signing off on your purchase. Some idiots seem to like total state control of what you may or may not buy from Big Pharma.
Canadians are Sofa King We Taught It, dumber than your average middle-age peasant when it comes to health care.
O please. As if you had any medical judgement.
It’s not in books or the internet
You’ll never have the judgement it to cure and not kill
Must seem easy to you, treating disease. What you dont know is, you have to be tougher and meaner and more persistent than the ugly diseases and injuries you face
But kind aand patient to patients
Put Patients First.
Not your ignorant ego
Let me effin tell you cowardly bastids something:
If freedom has higher death rate, and a lower infant mortality rate, or whatever, that is not a good reason to abridge freedom, you freakin’ cowardly good for nothin’ stateist bastids!!!
So the Federal Govt is bringing 1 million foreigners into Canada every year (permanent residents, temporary foreign workers, foreign students, refugees, etc). For this number, they should also bring in dozens of doctors every year.
We must shut down the myth that these medical professionals are exhausted because of COVID.
COVID and the lockdowns were the last f—ing straw for a decrepit system governed by bean-counters and ideologues.
But because socialised medicine is the Institution That Is Too Big to Fail, expect things like training, waiting for treatment, Canadian-produced pharmaceuticals and so on never to be addressed ever.
This all wrong. Paiinful to read. Towering ignorance shacked up to monumental entitlement.
Being a doc in Sask sucks . A lot. Family , the lake cabin, lack of courage all play tbeir ir part in preventing extinction , but the fact IS, bring in a million docs, you’ll see a million flee. Zip. Gone . The departed wish to say to you what Rhett said to Scarlet.
I was trained there , worked there, fled.
My
biggest regret is not emigrating immediately. The job sucks.
Dont think I’m carrying water for Corporate Medicine
They are a lot worse.
But you are safe enough from that. Mongol invaders didnt bother w the Arctic. Pickings
too slim.
I dont have a solution for you. Just me , I left.
All of the nonsense opinions above illustrate how much it burns , to try to do good there.
No one deserves that.
Phillipino au pairs in Arabia , leered at and cheated and beaten , have more fun days than your docs do. You dont deserve better.
Ever consider that?