Chair of uOttawa’s department of family medicine discusses shortage of family doctors across Ottawa and Canada

A recent report from the Ottawa Board of Health estimated 150,000 people in Ottawa do not have access to primary care, whether it be a doctor or a nurse practitioner. 

More than two million Ontarians do not have a family doctor. 

Dr. Clare Liddy, the chair of the University of Ottawa's department of family medicine told Wake Up With Rob Snow on Feb. 8 said investing in family medicine, providing more support to family doctors and introducing a new type of team based clinics are ways to help with the shortage in family physicians. 

'We have suggested, and there has been an openness, to take a look at the administrative forms that need to be completed at this time by doctors that are City of Ottawa forms,” she said. “The other piece is, we are looking as a group of partners in family medicine and primary care to establish or extend our current clinical offerings.”

Dr. Liddy noted that one of the main reasons, she believes, is causing a shortage in family physicians in Ottawa and across the country is the under investment of the primary care sector. 

“We do train most of our family medicine doctors in team based care, which is an excellent model,” she said. “But when they graduate from universities in Ontario, there's very limited places for them to practice that type of comprehensive family medicine.”

Listen to the full interview with Dr. Clare Liddy below: