'Medical desert' leaves Park Ex residents scrambling to find a family doctor

A critical lack of family doctors in Montreal's Parc-Extension neighbourhood, known to many as Park Ex, is worrying some health workers and community groups in the diverse and densely populated area. 

Dr. Jhanzaib Sherwani, who helped found the privately operated Clinique Parc-X, which serves a large part of the community, says he is one of just a few full-time family doctors practicing in the region.

"Currently, we have the equivalent of two full-time physicians," he said of the situation in his clinic. "I would say that to really support this borough, we would need 10 to 15 more [in Parc-Extension]." 

At the South Asian Women's Community Center, which provides integration services to new arrivals in Quebec, manager Juvaria Yasser says often, the first question staff is asked is about health care and finding a family doctor — a challenge across the province. 

"There are many, many new arrivals who come and want to settle in Park Ex just because they have communities there, she says. "As a result, we keep on getting calls from people who are looking for family doctors and can't find [one]."

Parc-Extension is part of the health sub-region of Côte-des-Neiges–Métro–Parc-Extension, which has one of the lowest registration rates for family doctors in Quebec at 61 per cent, according to the Health and Social Services Ministry (MSSS). 

Dr. Sherwani figures half those people without doctors live in Parc-Extension.

He says this creates added stress on hospitals and emergency rooms, and leave patients scrambling for care. 

"When you can't see family doctors, you have small problems that turn into big problems," he said.

Situation is 'truly catastrophic,' CIUSSS says 

According to Francine Dupuis, CEO of the CIUSSS du Center-Ouest-de-l'île-de-Montréal, the Parc-Extension neighbourhood has become a "medical desert" and the situation is "truly catastrophic."

The head of the local health authority says if she had it her way, Quebec would assign some of the new graduates in family medicine to three-year assignments in neighbourhoods she says have been deserted by doctors. 

"Let them tell the doctors, 'You're assigned there, but it's not for two months, it's for, say, three years.'"

Dupuis says Quebec is "one of the last places in the Western world where physicians practise as free contractors... and that managers have no control over the allocation of physicians."

Québec Solidaire MNA Andrés Fontecilla, who represents the riding of Laurier-Dorion located in Montreal's Villeray–Saint-Michel–Parc-Extension borough, says the province has "systematically refused" to grant more permits for doctors in the neighbourhood.

While he says many doctors who speak languages from the Indian subcontinent want to practise in Park-Ex — which Dr. Sherwani says is needed in the neighbourhood to communicate with 85 to 90 per cent of his patients —  they can't get a permit in Montreal.

Legal challenge launched for more doctors in Montreal

Dr. Michel Vachon, president of the Montreal Association of General Practitioners, says Montreal is short dozens of doctors.

"In fact, if all patients registered with a family doctor in Montreal lived on the island of Montreal, we would have an 89 per cent registration rate, which is extraordinary," he said. "However, 21 per cent of those registered patients live in the 450, for a virtual rate of 68 per cent."

Dr. Vachon says Montreal family physicians are older on average than elsewhere in Quebec and that a higher proportion of their patients are vulnerable and require more time to care for.

"These are scary statistics," he said. "Now try to figure out how to explain why Montreal had 30 doctors cut by the Health Ministry." 

Recently, the province redeployed 30 new family doctors to the 450 area code — the suburbs that surround the island of Montreal — in part to convince some patients to switch to a family doctor closer to home.

One of Dr. Vachon's colleagues, Dr. Mark Roper, has launched a legal challenge to get what he calls a fair number of doctors again in Montreal.

Meanwhile, Dr. Sherwani, who holds walk-in days at his clinic, says 80 per cent of the patients he saw last week weren't registered with a family doctor. 

In 2018, the Coalition Avenir Québec government set a goal to ensure 85 per cent of Quebecers have access to a family doctor by the end of its first term in 2022.

Three years later, only six out of the province's 23 health authority regions have met or passed that number.

Over 880,000 Quebecers are currently on the waiting list for a family doctor, but at a news conference in November, Health Minister Christian Dubé said he believed the true number to be almost double that, around 1.5 million.