http://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.com/index.cfm?PgNm=TCE&Params=M1ARTM0013191
This is bad news for patients like Jennifer. Today, five million Canadians are without a family doctor. A 2005 survey found that just 23 per cent of Canadians were able to see a physician the same day they needed one - placing this country last among the six studied, including the U.S., Britain and Australia. Canada's doctor-patient ratio is among the worst of any industrialized nation: with just 2.2 physicians per thousand people, it ranks 24th out of 28 OECD countries (well below the average of three). And among the G8 countries, Canada ranks dead last when it comes to physician supply.
It's going to get worse. The aging population - one in four Canadians will be 65 or older by 2056, compared to 13 per cent now - will put huge strains on the health care system, and little is being done to address the doctor shortage that already exists. The CMA estimates it would take 26,000 more doctors, right now, to bring Canada up to the OECD average. Medical schools aren't graduating enough students to keep up with demand, and Day estimates that 1,500 Canadians are studying medicine in other countries. Already, one in nine doctors who graduated in 2006 practises in the U.S., noted one April article in the Canadian Medical Association Journal.
http://www.cbc.ca/canada/montreal/story/2006/11/02/quebec-familydoctors.html
about five million Canadians, or 17 per cent of the population, do not have a family doctor.
nearly two million of them, or 38 per cent, have attempted to find a family physician in the past year, but have failed
