Inside Out – Shoreline 2023 Community Update

by Dale Henley, Co-Chair, Shoreline Medical Society –

As Shoreline Medical Society enters its seventh year, and the shortage of family doctors grows evermore acute, we felt it important to update you about our ongoing efforts in these challenging times.

First, an encouraging note from the husband of a Shoreline patient:

“Last year my wife was diagnosed with a life-threatening condition. She did not have any symptoms, so it came as a complete surprise to us. If it hadn’t been for the quick action and careful attention of her Shoreline Medical physician, I’m not sure she would have received the treatment she so desperately needed. Shoreline Medical saved her life, and I am truly grateful.” This kind and uplifting message reinforces just how important Shoreline’s work is for us all.

Since 2016, Shoreline has worked to recruit family physicians and connect Peninsula residents to them. We have received vital support in this endeavour – crucial financial investments from the Saanich Peninsula Hospital and Healthcare Foundation, the Town of Sidney and a select group of generous donors. We are grateful to all of them, as we are to everyone who has offered other forms of backing.

Sadly, over the past year, Shoreline lost four of the young physicians it recruited. These losses have taught us that not all primary care providers thrive in longitudinal family practice. Work is now ongoing to improve recruitment and retention efforts. We have recruited three new physicians and a fourth, smaller practice, was assumed by one of our other doctors.

A major challenge of family practice is recruiting and retaining support staff – the backbone of any clinic. Since the pandemic, recruitment efforts have been ongoing, while clinic managers work tirelessly to help staff serve an often nearly overwhelming number of people.

Shoreline’s model has proved attractive for primary care providers who are drawn to the chance to care for their patients and provide community service. Most of our doctors provide care in the Saanich Peninsula Hospital’s Doctor of the Day program, Shoreline’s Walk-in Clinic, or the Youth Clinic. This model depends upon having locums (physicians who do not have a practice) to fill in gaps while other physicians provide community service. Unfortunately, recruiting locums over the past year was a constant struggle. We believe that the Province of B.C.’s new compensation model for physicians will help ease this shortage.

A recent opinion-editorial by CMA president Dr. Alika Fontaine published in The Globe and Mail said: “We do not get the healthcare systems we aspire to; we get the healthcare systems we design.” What I am seeing here is how community members working together with physicians can not only meet shared aspirations, but also begin to stimulate design change within the greater system.

There is much work to be done. Shoreline Medical Society will stay the course, meeting challenges and endeavoring to overcome them. Our vision remains “To support everyone on the Saanich Peninsula seeking primary healthcare, and to work towards the goal of everyone in our community having a family physician.”

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