Canada sees drop in number of family physicians for the first time in decades, study finds

The number of family physicians in Canada declined last year for the first time since the mid-1990s, a downturn that happened as rapid population growth and a rising number of elderly, chronically ill patients were already straining the primary-care system.Although the reduction in head count was small – there were 28 fewer family doctors in the country in 2023 than in 2022 – it works out to a nearly 3-per-cent drop in family physicians per capita because the population expanded significantly at the same time, according to new data from the Canadian Institute for Health Information (CIHI).The new CIHI report, set to be released Tuesday, also found that the average family doctor saw fewer individual patients in recent years than they did 10 years ago, a shift CIHI chalks up partly to sicker patients with greater medical needs.