A sizable minority of Canadian adults are living without a primary care provider, according to a recent report by the Canadian Institute for Health Information.
The CIHI report released on Thursday found that 5.4 million adults are currently without one, primarily younger adults, aged 18 to 34.
“A recent survey of 10 high-income countries found that Canada lags in access to primary care, with the lowest percentage of adults age 18 and older having access to a regular care provider,” reads the report.
“Canadians also face greater difficulty getting same-day, next-day, evening or weekend appointments compared with people in the other countries surveyed.”
Seniors aged 65 and older are more likely to have regular access to a family doctor or nurse practitioner, according to the data.
“The most affluent 20% of Canadians were slightly more likely to have a regular health care provider (84%) compared with the 20% with the lowest incomes (80%),” reads the report,” it continued.
The CIHI report measures the baseline of health priorities that have been agreed upon by both the provincial and federal levels of government.
Federal health minister Mark Holland announced the agency will begin releasing its report annually to tabulate progress across the country.
These priorities also include reducing patient wait times for mental health and substance-use counselling, recruiting additional healthcare workers, tackling surgical wait times and expanding the use of electronic health information.
According to the report, the backlog of surgical appointments as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic has begun to decrease, with the number of surgeries being performed returning to pre-pandemic levels.
Each healthcare funding agreement signed between the provinces and territories with the federal government comes with targets for how many doctors and nurses are needed for each workforce, noted Holland.
The CIHI also intends to start collecting data to track progress on two more health goals going forward; improving cultural safety for Indigenous patients and ensuring seniors can age with dignity.
Indigenous and rural communities are affected most by the primary care shortage.
This would mean a “sustained effort” in recruiting doctors and nurse practitioners from different jurisdictions” to be choosing health careers and really seeing far more people serving their own communities,” said Holland.