Ontario is short at least 1.5 million homes. The province’s family doctor shortage is even worse.
As of last year, 2.5 million Ontarians — 16 per cent of the population — didn’t have regular access to primary care.
In Toronto, the proportion of people without a family doctor isn’t as high as in other more northern, rural areas. In most neighbourhoods, upwards of 80 per cent of residents have a family doctor.
But new data shows the number of Torontonians with a family doctor is declining.
Using OHIP billing information, the team behind Inspire PHC, a physician-led research group, drilled down into postal code-based data to find out how many people have a regular source of primary care, what type of care they're getting, and where they're getting it.
"We have a crisis everywhere,” said Eilot Frymire, research manager at Inspire PHC, which receives funding from the Ministry of Health but operates independently.
Adults living in Toronto’s downtown core are the residents least likely to have a primary care physician, likely reflecting a concentration of younger adults.
York University's postal code has a somewhat lower attachment rate than surrounding postal codes, perhaps reflecting the same pattern.
There is also a recognizable but not very strongly defined income pattern.
Between 2020 and 2022, the percentage of adults attached to a primary care provider fell in 95 Toronto postal code areas and rose in just three.
For children and youth under 18, the problem is worse.
Attachment rates are highest in Scarborough and other east end neighbourhoods of the city.
Perhaps surprisingly, the proportion of children and youth with a doctor is the lowest in the higher-income neighbourhoods in the centre of the city.
In the M5G postal code area, between Yonge Street and University Avenue south of College Street, just 60 per cent of kids have a family doctor. In neighbouring areas, the attachment rate ranges between 61 per cent and 75 per cent.
While those areas have the worst overall numbers, other areas are seeing a steeper decline.
Between 2020 and 2022, the percentage of children and youth attached to a primary care provider fell in all Toronto postal codes. The most serious drop was in a large area of the west of the 416, centred on Weston.
Frymire said people not having a family doctor has dire consequences for the entire health-care system.
"If primary care isn't healthy, then the rest of the health-care system is not healthy."
Not all primary care is the same, Frymire noted. An "attached" patient, as Inspire-PHC defines them, might be getting regular primary care from a community health centre, walk-in clinic or another source.
The "most fortunate Ontarians" have what's known as team-based care — a family doctor plus a stable of specific care providers, like physiotherapists, counsellors and pharmacists, Frymire said.
The data for this story was originally compiled by The Trillium. The article includes files from Jack Hauen.
