Watch the video on FacebookCanada is facing a doctor shortage and it’s not just affecting access to care, it’s contributing to the overuse of antibiotics and rising antimicrobial resistance.
We need a Conservative proposed Blue Seal Program to get talented medical professionals who immigrate to Canada certified to practise in this country and into our healthcare system.
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What Kelly says in this video
Automatic transcript; it may contain small errors.
You mentioned that there's a misuse and overuse of antibiotics is contributing to the antimicrobial resistance and part of that is misdiagnosis. We know here in Canada that there's an extreme lack of doctors. In Canada we're not only losing our doctors to what we call a brain drain happening because of the tax burden, because of affordability, all the things happening in this country, but also we're unable to retain or we're unable to attract that talent as well again because of the tax burden, affordability, housing and things like that. Coupled with the fact that I've actually met a taxi driver that is a doctor in this country because of the educational barrier to get licensed here in Canada. So do you think that all of these constraints for us to not have doctors in this country is actually a burden to the doctors and it's leading to misdiagnosis and overuse that's happening and contributing to antimicrobial resistance? Yes, thank you. I think certainly the strain on the healthcare system and likely primary care in particular does definitely play a role in the overuse of antimicrobials and antibiotics. So we know that we do have a shortage of primary care physicians certainly in Ontario where I practice and what this means is that physicians may not have the time available that they want to spend with each individual patient. They may not have the opportunity to follow up on patients after that initial consultation and in some cases there may be a notion that prescribing antibiotics is a bit of a safety net if we're unsure whether infection is playing a role in the patient's presentation. So that diagnostic uncertainty is something that we struggle with a lot and is certainly compounded by you know a lack of healthcare providers or physicians and the time that they're able to spend with patients. So I think that to answer your question yes that certainly plays a role. We need access for primary care for all of our you know all of Canadians and infections are such a common syndromes that are seen day to day so any gaps in primary care are going to trickle into the system and contribute to AMR. Thank you so much. I'll just use the last couple seconds here to thank all the panelists for coming today and joining us. Thank you.