For the last 40 years, Dr. George Burden has been a family physician in Elmsdale, N.S. Although he’s not ready to retire just yet, the thought has crossed his mind.
“I’m worried about my patients. I have colleagues that are in their 80’s that are practicing because they know there’s nobody to take over the care of their complex, often elderly patients,” said Burden.
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Burden says he’s especially concerned about his senior patients.
“Seniors who don’t have a family doctor die and get sick very quickly because there are so many things that can go wrong,” he said.
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According to Doctors Nova Scotia, Burden’s story isn’t unique. In fact, they say more doctors are choosing to work later in life to provide for their patients.
“We know that over half of the doctors in Nova Scotia are over the age of 50 and a lot of physicians are working much later than they plan to to be able to keep their practice open, so they can continue to deliver care to their patients who would otherwise be without a family doctor,” said Dr. Tim Holland, president-elect of Doctors Nova Scotia.
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The organization would like to see a plan in place to help transition retiring doctors, where they would slowly phase out of their practice while a new physician phases in.
“It’s great to see physicians like Dr. Burden working for that long and being able to provide such great care for their patients. However, for every physician, there comes a time when they will eventually have to retire,” said Holland.
“It’ll still be a while for Dr. Burden, but when that day comes, we have to plan ahead for a new physician to be able to come in and take over that practice.”
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A transition program is something that Burden would like to see to make the idea of retirement easier for both him and his patients.
“That allows us to wind down but to still provide services to our patients and get the other doctor to know the patients because if you have 2,000 patients, just spending 30 minutes with each patients will take you six months if you’re a new doctor coming in. So, if I go out the door Friday and somebody comes into my practice Monday, they are going to be overwhelmed,” he said.
“This transition program could be very helpful in getting a lot of my patients looked after so that I can retire comfortably and with a clear conscious that everybody’s going to be taken care of.”
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The health minister was in his constituency office in Antigonish on Friday and unavailable for an interview. The health department says a process is in place to accommodate this type of transition, is available to all physicians, and is funded.
A spokesperson for the health department says they have approved seven physicians for overlap funding since June of last year.
A statement from the department released to Global News reads as follows:
“We already have an MD replacement process in place to do just that – help retiring physicians transition their practice to a new physician. Changes were made to the program in June 2017 to provide for greater flexibility for physicians to overlap during the transition. Since that time, no requests from physicians to overlap have been denied.
We have worked closely with Doctors NS on developing incentives to support family doctors, attract new ones and improve access to care for Nova Scotians. So far this year we have announced investments to pay family doctors more, create incentives to get more Nova Scotians off the province’s Need a Family Practice list, and to remove geographic restrictions for tuition relief, debt assistance and family medicine bursary. We look forward to our continued working relationship with Doctors NS.”
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For their part, Doctors Nova Scotia says if such a program exists, physicians aren’t aware it’s an option.
“There are a lot of informal opportunities for new doctors coming in but a lot of this has been set up either through connections through Doctors Nova Scotia or from residency programs. There’s nothing formal in place now that really helps set us up, such that retiring physicians can transition off to a new doctor in a way that’s best for their patients,” said Holland.
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