{"id":224743,"date":"2025-10-19T14:26:10","date_gmt":"2025-10-19T14:26:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/224743\/"},"modified":"2025-10-19T14:26:10","modified_gmt":"2025-10-19T14:26:10","slug":"hundreds-line-up-at-kanata-health-clinic-for-chance-at-a-new-doctor","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/224743\/","title":{"rendered":"Hundreds line up at Kanata health clinic for chance at a new doctor"},"content":{"rendered":"

Hundreds of people seeking a family physician waited hours in line Saturday morning at a health clinic in Ottawa’s west end.<\/p>\n

The Active Care clinic in Kanata put out a call for new patients and said it could register 400 to 600 people, with many assigned a physician assistant (PA), according to a medical secretary at the clinic. <\/p>\n

“We’ve been without a family doctor about five years and it’s like a golden ticket people are walking out with today. So we’re lining up for one,” said Alison Boughey, who waited in line for almost four hours.<\/p>\n

Boughey explained she was left without a primary care provider in Ottawa after her family doctor moved to Trenton, Ont., a few hours away. <\/p>\n

It was a story that came up several times among others in line who’d struggled to find a family physician in the city.<\/p>\n

\"WomanAlison Boughey waited in line for hours, hoping to be one of the few hundred people to be assigned a physician’s assistant (Jayden Dill\/CBC)<\/p>\n

Ontario has been experiencing a doctor shortage since the COVID-19 pandemic. <\/p>\n

The Ontario Medical Association (OMA) told CBC in an email that more than 2.5 million Ontarians “currently do not have access to a family physician.”<\/p>\n

The statement gave credit to recent investments in primary care as a good start to addressing the problem, but added that “the population’s health-care needs continue to exceed available resources.” <\/p>\n

According to an OMA factsheet<\/a>, it’s estimated that Ontario has 2.8 physicians for 1,000 people and that 40 per cent of them are considering retiring. <\/p>\n

\"ManRajwual Chirammal said his family physician is quitting, and he’s now looking for a replacement during a doctor shortage. (Jayden Dill\/CBC)<\/p>\n

“I currently have a family doctor, but he is closing his practice. I think his letter said he can’t take it anymore,” said Rajual Chirammal in the dying hours of Saturday’s registration period. <\/p>\n

“He’s closing the practice end of this month.”<\/p>\n

Chirammal said he doesn’t know many people with a family doctor, as most of his friends rely on the Appletree Medical Centre for care.<\/p>\n

He said he and his wife \u2014 who joined the line at 6 a.m., while he stayed home with their kids \u2014 couldn’t pass up Saturday’s opportunity.<\/p>\n

Even so, Chirammal said they’ll still have to wait three weeks before the clinic confirms there’s a doctor or a physician assistant for them.<\/p>\n

\"PaperThis sign posted outside the Active Care clinic in Kanata announces patients will be accepted on a ‘first come first served’ basis. (Jayden Dill\/CBC)’This is the way it is’<\/p>\n

Boughey said she estimated 250 people were ahead of her when she arrived around 8 a.m. <\/p>\n

She said the clinic’s voicemail indicated they were accepting new patients between 8 a.m. and noon Saturday, but she later found out some people were waiting as early as 4:30 a.m. <\/p>\n

“I’m hoping that they’re still accepting patients by the time I get to my place at the door in line,” she said.<\/p>\n

“I thought that coming to a big city, it would be easy to get another doctor,” added Marlene Vieira, another hopeful. “But I have not been able to even get on a wait list anywhere.”<\/p>\n

Vieira said she moved to Ottawa from Halliburton Highlands, just north of Peterborough, Ont. She said she hasn’t seen much difference compared to the rural area.<\/p>\n

“It’s been a wait,” Vieira said. “It would be nice not to have to, but this is the way it is.”<\/p>\n

The secretary at the Active Care clinic, Belinda Manuel, said they currently have around eight physicians and three PAs.<\/p>\n

PAs work alongside physicians to help reduce wait times and improve patient access to emergency medicine, according to the Ontario government<\/a>.<\/p>\n

They can conduct physicals, write referrals and prescribe certain medications but cannot prescribe narcotics, Manuel explained.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Hundreds of people seeking a family physician waited hours in line Saturday morning at a health clinic in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":224744,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[43,44,41,39,42,40],"class_list":{"0":"post-224743","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-headlines","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-top-news","11":"tag-top-stories","12":"tag-topnews","13":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/224743","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=224743"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/224743\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/224744"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=224743"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=224743"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=224743"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}