Consultation: Doctors asked to do more

Despite some decline in the epidemic, many clinics are still in favor of remote consultation.

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This increases the pressure on hospital emergencies, which has been high in recent weeks.

Quebec asks doctors to be part of the solution. To make the emergency room easier, the government is asking family doctors to see even those with symptoms like Kovid. At the Angus Medical Clinic, 40 family physicians confirmed that they already had face-to-face consultations.

“More, yes, the standards have become much simpler, because people … the population has been vaccinated, doctors are being vaccinated,” said Dr. Nadine Cassiani, a family physician at Angus Medical Clinic.

The government wants doctors to do less teleconsultations as this type of consultation puts pressure on hospitals.

“Yes, the emergency room sent a lot of patients because people teleconceived and the doctor, unable to examine, he referred the patient to the emergency room,” Nadine Cassiani explained.

In April 2020, family physicians reached 729,000 patients through teleconsultation. This represents 60% of all visits and a bill of 60 million to the government. By December 2020, the percentage of services provided remotely had dropped to 42 percent. The latest and most available data indicate that this percentage was 37% last April. This can be explained by the fact that some elderly doctors do not get their second dose.

“We have about 25% of physicians over the age of 65. Perhaps in April, there were still a large number of teleconsultations that were relevant and justified, but we are not there now,” said Dr. Franకోois Loubert, regional general medicine head from Montreal.