B.C. doctors sound the alarm as drop-in medical clinics disappear
Shortage of doctors and incentives to work in family practice has cut walk-in clinics by a third to a half in B.C.
The NDP’s efforts to improve health care through a new payment model for family physicians and the establishment of urgent and primary care centres has had the unintended consequence of cutting the ranks of walk-in clinics across the province.
According to the medical mapping service MediMap, the number of walk-in clinics across B.C. has dropped between 30 to 50 per cent in recent years as clinics move to an appointment-only model or close their doors.
This has led some doctors to warn that there are fewer and fewer options for immediate care in the province as urgent-care-clinic appointments remain hard to book in certain communities and emergency room waiting times continue to skyrocket.
Rita McCracken, a family physician and UBC assistant professor in the family practice department, said part of the problem is the new payment model introduced by then-health minister Adrian Dix in 2023 that aims to retain family physicians through better compensation. The model encourages doctors to work in family practice instead of putting in hours at a walk-in clinic, she said.
She likened health care to the education system and wants the province to increase the capacity of primary care, arguing that neither walk-in clinics nor urgent and primary care centres are an ideal model.
“If we want people to have better access to primary care when they need it, we need to have clinics that have the capacity to be able to provide care to the people that live close by, just like we do for elementary schools,” McCracken said.
“I’m not saying that there aren’t many, many problems with education right now, but if we just kind of take a look at that model of access to public education, we’ve completely thrown that out the window when it comes to primary care.”
