An apple a day might keep the doctor away, but at some point, everyone will need to go see their family doctors. But what happens when your family doctor is no longer available? 
 
 
J. (who asked that her identity remain confidential) was confronted with that very situation, right after she had given birth to her twins. 
 
"It was the last thing I wanted to be doing [is searching for a new family doctor]. I spent probably two days trying to find a doctor in the middle of trying to breastfeed twins, trying to care for my daughter, lack of sleep, and a bladder infection."
 
J.'s original family doctor, who was a referral from a dear friend was perfect for her and her family. But when she found out that she was pregnant with twins and the ultrasound showed that she may have a high-risk pregnancy, she was referred to an obstetrician.
 
"The OB (obstetrician) followed me throughout my pregnancy and this is kind of where I became a mom for the first time and everything is a blur," J. said. "I believe it was right before we had the twins or maybe shortly after that we received a letter from my [family] doctor's clinic basically stating that the doctor was moving to British Columbia and they didn't have anybody to take over with patients, so they were basically discharging me."
 
When that news came in November 2020, J.'s daughter had begun having health complications and was admitted to the Alberta Children's Hospital in Calgary. J.'s daughter would spend two weeks in the neonatal intensive care unit
 
"In those two weeks, they [the doctors] were asking  'well, who's your family doctor?', I was like, the guy moved to B.C.," she said. "So I basically had to find a new family doctor. I spent a few days in the cafeteria at the Children's hospital calling doctors in Airdrie. I literally called every doctor in Airdrie and I only found one that was new accepting patients."
 
It would take almost an entire month for J. to find a new family doctor, while in the meantime her daughter was assigned a pediatrician. The added stress of having newborn twins and one that was sick was compounded by the fact that J. had developed a severe bladder infection after giving birth.
 
"I ended up having to go to [Airdrie's] Urgent Care Centre because I had nowhere else to go for something as simple as like a bladder infection," she said. "I saw all these posts on the Airdrie mom's groups [on Faceook] talking about how busy Urgent Care was. I felt awful, but I had no options."
 
While J. did manage to find a family doctor, one that she is happy with, she doesn't deny she still misses her previous family doctor.
 
"I really liked his office staff; the lady who ran the desk, super friendly and very kind," J. said. "Through having conversations, we had discovered that me and the doctor both have hairless cats, so we bonded over that. It was just a relationship that we had built."
 
According to a quarterly update by The College of Physicians and Surgeons of Alberta (January 01st, 2021 to March 31st, 2021, "At the end of Mar 2021 there were 10,866 physicians registered on the inprovince registers. This figure reflects a decrease of 254 from the last quarter and an increase of 54 from the same period in 2020. Over the last quarter, there was a net decrease of 196 specialists (65 Family Medicine Specialist/131 Non-Family Medicine Specialists) 
 
In Airdrie, between January 1st, 2021 and March 31st, 2021, there were 71 physicians, compared to 73 physicians in the prior reporting period.
 
On the website Alberta Doctor Finder, Airdrie has four clinics listed, and a total of 14 doctors listed (three of whom specialize in maternity care), with only eight doctors listed as accepting new patients.
 
On February 1st, the provincial government announced The Rural Education Supplement and Integrated Doctor Experience (RESIDE) program will provide $2 million to 20 new family physicians in each of the next three years. The physicians will practise in 15 identified rural or remote communities of need. Fifteen communities have been identified for the first year of the program, though Airdrie is not on that list.
 

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