When we were in Waterloo, we were told there was a 2 year waiting list to get a family Dr. (Apparently quicker if you get referred).

So we were pleasantly supprised that we could sign up straight away when we moved to Saskatchewan, due to a new practice openning. Especially as we were expecting new additions to our family.

BUT, we were a bit disappointed today with some things we were told.

We arranged an appointment a few weeks back for our newborns (2nd follow up visit). About an hour before I was going to leave work, they phoned up to cancel, they could fit us in 90 minutes later though.

The problem was I had cleared the way for the original time and the new time conflicted with a few things, it also meant I would have to more or less take the whole afternoon off work.

We asked if it was possible to go a bit later, they said no, we would have to wait for the following week !! We have a few minor concerns that we were keen to see the Dr about, so we pleaded to be squeezed in sooner, they said no.

We asked if we could phone the Dr, we were told our Dr does not receive calls.

We said we really wanted to see someone this week if possible (anyone), we were told to go to a walk in clinic if we were that worried.

We asked, well what can we do if it was an emergency, wouldn't one of the other doctor's see us, they said no. we would have to go to the hospital emergency room.

This left us wondering what's the use of a family doctor, if we can only ever see them on a week or so's notice!!



Is this normal practice or do we have a bad family Doctor?

Not necessarily a bad family Dr. I am a Nurse and at the moment we are over run with flu paranoia.Our clinics are over booked with patients worried about it.
The receptionists are often the problem!
But it is not like the UK, they don't make house calls or do 24 hr on call shifts.
They can choose to work how and when they like!
Walk in clinics are often used when the Dr is fully booked.
Sorry you had this though with young children it is a worry.

Normal....apparently. We have friends and colleagues who actually have family doctors and regularly use walk in clinics.

We have a family doctor here but we always use the walk in clinic because in our case they're the same doctors (there's only one health centre here and we know all the doctors and they're all as good as each other) and they run walk-ins every weekday morning so that way we always get seen that day.

On the rare occasions that we've made appointments instead (to discuss test results or something) we've ended up waiting just as long in the waiting room (never more than 1hr even on the busiest days though) and the only real difference has been knowing which doctor you're going to see in advance...

People here with family doctors also use the walk-in clinic in the evenings and Saturday mornings, and the ER at the local hospital at all other times.

I find it strange that people use the ER for non-emergency visits with a doctor, and even stranger that doctors don't do house calls especially in the case of frail/elderly people.

Thanks for the replies, at least we know its normal now.

and even stranger that doctors don't do house calls especially in the case of frail/elderly people.

Aah, but no Dr.Harold Shipman here, YET!

Here in Victoria there are Family Drs for the over 75s and they will do house calls, they will always accept new patients also. You can see how they are able to do that as others may not stay on the lists.

We had a family doctor when we were in Ontario, we only saw her once and that was the initial consultation. The rest of the time we used walk in clinics or the emergency.

When we moved over to Saskatchewan the only reason for getting a family doctor was that my son needed a referral to a pediatrician and that can only come from a family doctor not from a doctor in the walk in clinics( even though sometimes it is the same doctor ).

I have been here for 10 years now and still cant believe some of the symptoms people go to the emergency at the hospital with but once again thats just the way it is here

Appropriately enough I was having a conversation with a colleague today about the n hours he spent at the Health Sciences ER with a sprained ankle at the weekend. After n hours he gave up and went home. That sounds like exactly the same experience in an NHS A&E back home.

We're fortunate to have an excellent family doctor. Generally we can get an appointment within a week and sometimes a day if we're prepared to see one of her colleagues. My only gripe is that she consistently runs 1-2hrs behind schedule so a 10:30am appointment involves sitting in the waiting room for 2 hrs before you get seen. Pretty boring now they've taken all the (out of date) magazines out of the waiting room lest they harbour the dreaded swine flu!:

True - but do you think you would ever have went to the A&E in the uk with a sprained ankle - I need something falling off or broken before I set foot in there

<sighs>

The NHS hospitals that I worked in were just fine. I get rather tired of reading/hearing complaints damning the whole service.

I've yet to figure out what is "normal" in my little area, let alone the whole of Canada. There seems to be a wide spread in access to resources.

For the serious stuff I think there is good response, but at the more trivial niggly annoyance end of things its apparent that perhaps the resources are thinly spread.

I don't think he was saying anything bad re NHS, just that you wouldn't go to A & E for a 'cold' etc like they seem to here because of no other alternative other than walk in.