Two Ontario physicians — one of them the past president of the Ontario Medical Association (OMA) — are saying Ontario residents need to stay in touch with their primary care physicians to stay healthy during this second wave of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Doctors Nadia Alam (formerly OMA president) and Dominik Alex Nowak, have jointly authored an essay that urges Ontario residents to re-engage with their primary care physicians. Alam and Nowak are both family physicians based in Southern Ontario.
The doctors wrote that the first wave of COVID-19 in Ontario focused on the need for hospital beds and ventilators. They said the change in the second wave is that there is now a double challenge; respond to rising case rates as well as primary health care.
"The response to this combined challenge matters,” said the doctors. “Regardless of what happens with COVID-19, other illnesses continue their relentless march. Ask anyone, and many will share stories of late diagnosis, delayed treatment, avoidable outcomes, and suffering faced by people, families, and caregivers.”
They also argued that the hospital-centric approach in the first wave made sense, but the personal care provided by family doctors is what most patients need most.
"For our next wave and beyond, Ontario’s leaders need to immediately engage primary care physicians,” the doctors said. “Research shows that people with a family doctor benefit from timely cancer screening, fewer hospitalizations and emergency visits, and live longer. Primary care is the heart of a high-functioning healthcare system, and family doctors have continued to tirelessly care for Ontarians throughout the pandemic.”
They further suggest Ontario needs to step up and invest in promoting more personal care from family physicians with a three-pronged approach. Firstly, they urge the province to engage more physicians in everyday primary care, especially with the need for flu vaccines.
"In a year when widespread vaccination is critical, imagine the success story from meaningfully engaging family doctors to vaccinate everyone through co-ordinated primary care hubs."
Secondly, the doctors said Ontario needs to invest more in primary care.
"In our first wave, community practices had to fend for themselves; clinics were left to source their own life-saving personal protective equipment,” said the essay. “Even before the pandemic, Ontario’s health policy neglected much of primary care — the majority of Ontarians are excluded from interprofessional primary care teams.”
Thirdly, "lean on us" said the doctors.
Primary care professionals hold trusted relationships with the people, families, and caregivers in our communities. The pandemic is an opportunity to lean on the province’s nine thousand comprehensive family physicians to help socialize physical distancing, universal masking, and other public health measures.
Ontario’s family doctors are ready to support a provincial communications strategy that relies on key local primary care experts and influencers to convey a unified, science-based, and compassionate message, at a time when misinformation is deadly.