Query

Our little city is becoming a doctor ghost town.

Figure. Photo by: Anson Liaw

It started with Dr. Angry. It was inevitable: he was unhappy about everything. A pretext presented itself: the hospital asked him to finish his charts, which were piled into tottering stacks that kept spilling onto the floor. Clerical staff had to sort out which notes spilled out of which chart; hence the polite memo to all doctors to “Please have all charts dictated within thirty days of patient discharge” and after that a more direct memo, apparently sent to Dr. Angry alone. He waved the memo around, shouting to all who were forced to listen, “I do so much for this hospital! I carry it on my back! I'm too busy to dictate charts!” One day, he left, telling all of us that the hospital was out to get him and that we were next.

Angry was right about one thing: he did see a lot of patients. With him gone, it fell on the rest of us to take our share of that extra patient load. There was another matter: Angry's call also had to get divided up among us, with predictable results. Dr. Angry sent us a postcard from a resort on the tropical island he was servicing. Bastard. All of us began to grumble a bit more about leaving for some community where there were more doctors, a properly serviced area.

I thought these grumblings were natural and didn't expect another physician to go. But one did, apologizing to all of us. We didn't begrudge her decision; all of us had thought of doing the same. But her departure made us desperate. There were four of us left to staff the emergency department, two ambulatory clinics and a general ward. Something had to be done, or the entire town would be bereft of physicians. I finally learned just how precarious the work–home balance is; the loss of just one colleague can multiply one's work untenably. We took our message to our MPP, who promised to take it to the premier.

We haven't heard back, and it's been several months. Calls to the constituency office have not been returned. Our dilemma has been leaked to the media, and the town has understandably become hysterical, fearing that their doctors will leave en masse. To make matters worse, yesterday I heard the MPP on the radio rattling off all the accomplishments of the current government in health care; at several points the radio host insistently said, “But what about our town? What are you going to do to prevent the exodus of physicians that will happen unless you recruit more to the area?”

And I thought to myself, cynically: How many votes strong are we? If the politician actually answered the question, then we had enough; if he avoided it and regurgitated the government's record, we didn't.

Our elected representative continued, unfazed and unwilling to say what was clear to all: our community doesn't matter enough. It really makes me feel like I don't matter enough; and that makes me want to be very, very Angry.

— Dr. Ursus