B.C. clinic closures leave thousands without family doctor

Around 3,500 patients in Victoria just got word they'll have to find a new doctor in the new year.

Shelbourne Medical Clinic sent a letter to its regular patients, advising them that it is closing at the end of March 2024, because one of the three family doctors at the clinic, Dr. Lorne Verhulst, is retiring. The remaining two doctors can't keep the practice running on their own.

Verhulst says at 69 years old, and 45 years into his career, it’s time to retire.

He couldn’t find a replacement willing to take on the gig and says the province should step up and help pay the cost of leasing and running an office like his to make it more attractive for future doctors.

Verhulst feels like the system is letting patients down.

“Imagine you go to the local school and you want to enroll Johnny in Grade 2 and the school says, 'Sorry we're not accepting new pupils.’ Well, that’s the situation in medicine," said Verhulst.

The Shelbourne Medical Clinic is not the only doctor's office where patients got bad news in the last few days. A similar letter went out to patients at a doctor's office in White Rock. One of those patients was BC United MLA Trevor Halford.

Halford said he’s upset he’s losing his family doctor, someone who delivered his daughter, and a physician who tried for nearly five years to find a replacement before retiring, but Halford said the impact for his constituents is his biggest concern.

“It’s a community that is full of seniors and that is where my focus is, because a lot of seniors in my riding do not have access to a family doctor,” he said Tuesday.

The Ministry of Health, in a statement, acknowledged the stress clinic closures can cause for patients, saying work is ongoing to address the province's doctor shortage.

"That’s why we are hiring more primary care providers, including family physicians, and changing the way we compensate them so it is more competitive. We are also reducing barriers for international medical graduates to work in B.C.”

Dr. Jennifer Lush is a family physician in Saanich. She told CTV News that the new payment model rolled out earlier this year is helping retain general practitioners. However, she also says more information about how many doctors are needed in order to remedy the shortage should be made public.

“Improve transparency — better leveraging of data that they have,” said Lush when asked what the province could do to improve primary care and how it’s functioning in B.C.