Lake Cowichan Mayor Tim McGonigle says city council will pull every lever it can to replace the town’s only two family physicians, both of whom will be gone by the start of summer.
At a council meeting Tuesday evening, McGonigle said the town will do “everything within our power, with everything what we have in our toolbox, to try to entice family physicians to our area.”
Dr. David Froese, who has been a family physician in the Cowichan Valley for more than three decades, will retire by March 30, while Dr. Wagdy Basily is leaving B.C. as of June 30.
“We’re going to be with zero doctors as of June of this year,” said McGonigle.
That leaves Lakeside Medical Clinic, which serves the town and surrounding area of 6,500 people, looking for family physicians amid a critical shortage across the province.
McGonigle said the majority of residents in the small Island town are seniors — 68 per cent are 55 and older.
Doctors in Duncan, about 30 kilometres or a 20-minute drive away, are not an option for those who cannot drive, and in any case “they are full and have wait lists,” said McGonigle.
“All the family physicians within the Cowichan Valley currently have a waitlist, so it would mean they’d be off to an urgent care facility in Chemainus or Ladysmith or Cowichan District Hospital,” he said.
“And we know that it is already a strained system within Cowichan District Hospital, so that will have a significant impact on their level of service.”
McGonigle, whose family doctor is in Cobble Hill, said his wife and the rest of his family will also be affected by the loss of family doctors. His grandson has Down’s syndrome and related complex needs.
In a notice on the clinic’s front doors, Froese says serving generations of families “has been an honour.”
“When I asked one of my mentors several years ago how he knew when to retire he replied, ‘I just knew.’ Now in my 70s I understand what he meant,” wrote Froese. “Although I know it is my time now and I do look forward to more fishing and family time, I find this an emotional and difficult transition.”
McGonigle said that even though Froese was past typical retirement age, he was still doing house calls and end-of-life care for patients who needed it.
“I do not begrudge him his retirement for sure, because he has given us great service while he’s been here.”
The town has 1.7 full-time-equivalent nurse practitioners who work out of the Lake Cowichan Health Unit, but doesn’t have an Urgent and Primary Care Centre for walk-ins, he said.
The Lakeside Medical Clinic said it is actively seeking replacement physicians.
The town is reaching out to its MLA, MP, Island Health, B.C. Health Minister Josie Osborne, and the Cowichan Valley’s primary care teams.
“I chatted with the health minister, she called yesterday, and she is quite aware of the situation not only in our community but in other small communities,” said McGonigle.
The mayor said the town went through a similar situation about 15 years ago and struck a committee that worked with family physician associations and was successful.
He said he appreciates the way Colwood’s Mayor Doug Kobayashi thought “outside the box” to establish a municipally administered medical clinic and hire doctors on salary, but Lake Cowichan is too small for a similar solution.
McGonigle noted that 87 per cent of Lake Cowichan’s tax base is residential. “We don’t have the industrial and commercial capacity that Colwood does.”
In the summer, the town’s population can swell to 50,000, he said, as it’s home to the second-largest lake on Vancouver Island, and hosts big summer concerts and recreational activities. That also has a “significant” impact on the town’s health services, he said.
On social media, Courtenay-Comox MLA Brennan Day, B.C. Conservatives critic for rural health and seniors health, called the pending loss of the town’s two family doctors a “devastating blow for local residents.”
Governments have talked for some time about the “grey wave,” referring to a growing numbers of seniors who will require more health care.
“Now it’s here, and successive governments failed to properly plan for its arrival,” he said, suggesting better incentives are needed to attract physicians.
The province’s new longitudinal family physician payment model, which provides an alternative to the old fee-for-service model, came into effect in February 2023 and has attracted more physicians to enter or return to family practice.
B.C. has added 835 primary-care family doctors who are taking on patients since launching its new physician pay model, according to the ministry.
In 2022, studies showed about one million British Columbians didn’t have access to a family doctor.
The B.C. College of Family Physicians and B.C. Family Doctors recently said that number is now about 700,000, however nearly 40 per cent of family doctors are set to retire or reduce clinical hours within five years.
The Health Ministry says about 297,000 people have been connected to a family doctor or nurse practitioner since the Health Connect Registry launched provincewide in July 2023.
