{"id":955626,"date":"2026-11-02T15:12:15","date_gmt":"2026-11-02T15:12:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/955626\/"},"modified":"2026-11-02T15:12:15","modified_gmt":"2026-11-02T15:12:15","slug":"number-of-emergency-rooms-relying-on-virtual-care-doubled-from-2024-to-2025-nlma","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/955626\/","title":{"rendered":"Number of Emergency Rooms Relying on Virtual Care Doubled from 2024 to 2025: NLMA"},"content":{"rendered":"

\t\t\t\t <\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\"Number<\/p>\n

(VOCM News)<\/p>\n

The President of the Newfoundland and Labrador Medical Association is concerned about what he sees as the growing use of virtual health care, calling it a symptom of the ongoing physician shortage.<\/p>\n

Further, he says government does not currently have everything it takes to reduce the shortage.<\/p>\n

Dr. David Metcalfe says the use of Teladoc and FoneMed is actually increasing, not decreasing.<\/p>\n

He says in 2024, five emergency departments were relying on virtual care to keep the doors open. in 2026, that number doubled to ten ERs across the province.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

NLMA President Dr. David Metcalfe (NLMA)<\/p>\n

Further, he says government does not have sufficient data to address the shortage.<\/p>\n

For example, Dr. Metcalfe says you have to know how many physicians you actually need before you can have a proper plan for recruitment and retention. That was only partially addressed in a recent human resources document (the core staffing review.)<\/p>\n

He says physician numbers were not included in that document. He wants to see a document showing how many are leaving the province vs how many doctors are being recruited.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" (VOCM News) The President of the Newfoundland and Labrador Medical Association is concerned about what he sees…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":955627,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[49,48,84,392,269876,185074,269873,269875,269877,269874,269870,269871,269872],"class_list":["post-955626","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-healthcare","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-health","tag-healthcare","tag-listen-to-vocm","tag-news-radio","tag-news-radio-st-johns","tag-st-johns-fm-radio","tag-st-johns-local-radio","tag-st-johns-radio-station","tag-vocm","tag-vocm-590","tag-vocm-radio"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/955626","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=955626"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/955626\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/955627"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=955626"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=955626"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=955626"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}