Dr. Francisco Lang needs help. The number of patients that are walking through his doors at the Davidson Family Practice seeking assistance along with those coming to emergency services at the Davidson Health Centre are increasing every day and he simply can’t keep up.

Lang said this growth in problems that he is dealing with is due to the “migration of doctors” in nearby communities to group practices in bigger centres such as Saskatoon or Regina or even to other provinces. The fact that these patients are coming from different health regions other than Heartland Health is of no importance.

“As a result, there is an accumulation of the need for medical services here and you immediately realize that you are not enough to support and satisfy those expectations from the community,” said Lang. “It’s not that the community gets more illnesses; it’s not that the community is losing their healthy status. It’s simply that the volume and the problems around the communities are getting more complicated. This reason is why in rural communities or small communities, sole practitioners disappear.”

The Davidson Family Practice has seen a steady increase in patients since the doctor in Imperial left a few years ago and is likely to get a huge boost when Dr. Narinda Maree leaves for Moose Jaw at the beginning of August. Emergency services at the Davidson Health Centre have also seen a wide growth and will continue to do so considering all emergency services run out of Craik will now be shifted to Davidson when their doctor leaves.

Lang said a new primary-care model is needed to fix this situation or the same result will occur where a sole practitioner simply burns out. He said a team of doctors is needed to cover such a large area with two ideally placed in Davidson and a third operating out of Craik with basic emergency services at a minimum in that town.

“Patients do not consider the boundaries to move around to get medical services that are needed,” he said in reference to the existence of the different health care regions. “As such, a doctor in a community may not consider those boundaries either in terms of geographical division. Medically, I find it inappropriate for me to not treat a patient from Craik just based on the fact that patient belongs to another health region.”

To read more please see the July 9 print edition of The Davidson Leader.