Quebec family doctors forced to take patients through online portal due to new legislation

As of Thursday, family doctors in Quebec will have to select their patients through an online portal due to new legislation going into effect.

Quebec has changed the way doctors acquire patients to try to cut down on the growing waiting lists by forcing them to primarily select patients through the Quebec Family Doctor Finder – or GAMF.

But some Montreal family doctors say there are issues with the system.

Dr. Annick Gauthier, a family physician at St. Mary’s Hospital, says she has had problems with the GAMF in the past.

“One in two patients that they gave me on their list in 2021 when I was taking on patients from the GAMF, no longer needed a doctor because they were unfortunately passed away or they had another doctor, or they no longer lived in Quebec,” she said. “It was a huge amount of energy for the people at the administration of the GAMF, myself and my secretaries to call these people and find this out.”

Dr. Michael Kalin is a family doctor in Côte-St-Luc and a member of the regional department of general medicine for Cavendish, a body that helps recruit new physicians. He says the new changes are a bureaucratic nightmare.

“In the past, if you wanted to be my patient, you could call my office and if I was accepting patients, I could accept you,” he said. “This contributed to the autonomy of family physicians. It was a very important part of who we are and how we establish a practice. As of today, the law restricts who we can accept.”

Dr. Kalin says the GAMF is not up to speed with reality.

“The problem is that the bureaucrats the people who are trying to administer this are trying desperately to catch up,” he said. “But they’re always always behind because physicians are retiring, physicians are leaving the public system. More and more patients are being orphaned.”

People like Montrealer Emmanuelle Lamoureux’s grandparents are in search of a family doctor and are on the waitlist.

“They’re kind of stressed and they feel like if they go to the public system, they won’t get any help too because it’s not urgent. They just want to like have a regular check in,” she said.

She herself was once on the waitlist to get a family doctor. “I think it lasted for eight years before we could access to one,” she said.

The Quebec Health Ministry tells CityNews that each region has its own waiting list and employees work to update those lists, but remind people to update their details like change of address or state of their health.

Dr. Gauthier says that’s difficult for patients to do and wants to see updates to the list by the government.

“I am specifically concerned about my residents because I’m a teacher here at St. Mary’s and when they have to access the list to get their new patients as they start as a family physician if they have to spend their time to triage one in two people not needing a doctor, that’s a huge amount of effort and worry and stress on them when we have so many patients that need physicians,” she said.

Dr. Kalin says Quebec is in desperate need of more family doctors.

In February, the Fédération des médecins omnipraticiens du Québec (FMOQ) estimated that there is a shortage of around 1,500 to 2,000 family doctors.

In early May, the Quebec government announced they plan to train nearly 200 more doctors per year – starting this fall.

“You have to stop the bleeding,” he said. “The population is growing people are moving here. That’s a wonderful thing, but we have to reflect that in the health care services that we provide you can’t offer more with less.”