Even in a country with social medicine, there is an ongoing problem of shortages of family physicians and specialists in cities and rurual areas in Canada.
CAnada is a huge country, 2nd biggest (or lst) in the world. What is so mind-boggling when I have travelled across Canada, is there are very few road systems just 500 kms. north of the U.S. border. Look at a road map of Canada. THe stretch of CAnada is over 2,000 kms. further north, in addition of 500 kms.
All doctors get paid under our system when they work....the reality is that physicians like any other profession in North America, exercise freedom of personal choice where and when they work.
Unless the medical licensing bodies and federal government, mandate doctors to practice in allocated geographic areas for a minimum certain time period, in their country where they are licensed to practice, in Canada we will continue to have an imbalance of physicians and specialists.
I should add, most Canadian -trained physicians very early, get a taste of the benefits of bigger city life because the university medical programs are located in bigger Canadian cities.
There are no face-to-face doctor medical university training programs in any rural area in Canada since not all CAnadian universities offer medical training.
In the past 20 years, the gender profile of the medical profession has changed...there are more women doctors now. THere are have been recent articles on this impact here in Canada in past 6 months. And they are exercising the right to work less hrs. ..to balance having children.
I was in the Arctic a few years ago, where in CAnada's newest territory, I was in the capital city, Iqualit. At the airport where we were stuck for 8 hrs. while a 140 kms. blizzard whipped through on February. I met a young Inuit mother who carried her baby in modern fashionable, amuit, a mother's parka, where they can carry baby in the hood.
The baby and Mom were flying down to Ottawa, southern Ontario, for Pete's sake, 1,800 kms. south for club foot post-surgery check-up.
When you go to the ARctic, it is truly scary....there are literally no roads. Open white, blinding tundra. Think of the health care for these people. The care for these CAnadians...is also part of our social medical system.
Or a woman who is physically abused by her hubby in a remote ARrctic commmunity, population less than 1,000, where there is high alcoholism, etc. There are NO roads. Where can you escape to??????
when I want to complain our problems in southern Canada, at least I can be comforted there is a whole network of accessible support services in many cities, if I make the effort to find out...just a couple local phone calls away.
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