Montreal physician set to retire says none of her 800 patients has found a new family doctor

Dr. Geneviève Dechêne announced her retirement two years ago, but the Montreal physician says the health-care system is failing her 800 patients since none of them has been able to find a new family doctor.

She's not going quietly into retirement this December; she's using her voice to call the current situation unacceptable, especially for elderly patients, who will just end up in the hospital emergency room.

"If you have a severe lung condition, I will make you sure you have in your pharmacy [ahead of time] antibiotics, cortisone. For cancer, I may know you have acute pain so ... I will write medication for acute bouts of pain. But when you go to without-appointment clinics, that's not done. That's my job as a family doctor, taking charge. So yes, they will go many more times [to] the emergency room, they will be more hospitalized. They will suffer more. That's my main worry," she told CTV News.

"I love my patients and I hate to see that they will suffer."

Dechêne says this penalizes older, sicker patients because they don't get the consistent care that they would get if the same doctor treated them over time and knew their history.

Earlier this week, the Quebec Family Doctors Federation announced its members have collectively taken on more than half a million new patients, but Dechêne says these patients are all in the care of a family medicine clinic, not by one doctor.

Elderly patients need a real family doctor, she said, fearing that without a long-term doctor-patient relationship, older patients will end up in the ER.

"It's been well-proven all over the world that a follow-up by a family physician for severely sick patients is a plus. You get better treatment because that doctor knows you …you go less to the emergency room, and you're less sick," she said.

Dechêne says part of the problem is that family doctors such as herself spend 40 per cent of their time working in hospitals, more than double the rate in other provinces. Dechêne notes that Quebec is aging at a rapid pace and she says health-care system needs to adapt to that reality.