Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Honourable members of the Standing Committee on Health, thank you for inviting me to speak today on behalf of the Association of Faculties of Medicine of Canada. I'll be speaking in English, but I'd be pleased to respond to any questions in both official languages.
I have the pleasure of joining you today from the beautiful Lake Louise, Alberta, Treaty 7 territory, the traditional and ancestral territories of the Stoney Nakoda Nation, the nations of Blackfoot Confederacy, the Dene people and the Métis Nation of Alberta Region 3. The AFMC is located in Ottawa, the unceded, unsurrendered traditional territory of the Anishinabe Algonquin nation.
My name is Dr. Geneviève Moineau. I am the president and CEO of the AFMC. I also practise pediatric emergency medicine at the Children’s Hospital of Eastern Ontario, and I am a professor in the department of pediatrics and emergency medicine at the University of Ottawa. The AFMC represents Canada’s 17 faculties of medicine, which train and produce the physicians in this country.
The AFMC commends the standing committee for this study on Canada’s health workforce. We recognize that solutions around human health resource planning need to include considerations of all health professions. The ultimate goal is that patients receive the right care by the right care provider at the right time.
AFMC is committed to serving the needs of Canadians and has been a long-time advocate for better physician resource planning in Canada. I believe we have valuable information to share with you today in support of this important study.
As you heard from past witnesses, the 2019 Canada community health survey found that approximately 4.6 million Canadians aged 12 and older reported not having a regular health care provider. The pandemic has exacerbated this long-standing deficit. We encourage the federal government to help coordinate change and inspire provincial and territorial leaders to ensure that we have the right number, mix and distribution of physicians to meet societal needs.
There are key considerations that I would like to highlight, based on data the AFMC collects. First, current admissions to medical school are not aligned with population growth in Canada. Second, an increasing number of Canadian medical school graduates have a delay in their entry to residency and, therefore, a delay in providing the care that Canadians need. Third, we are currently not responding to the need for family physicians, particularly in rural settings.
Medical school admissions should align to the population growth to meet societal needs. While the Canadian population has increased by 12% since 2010, admissions to our medical schools have only increased by 6%.
Not only are admissions not increasing at the same rate as the Canadian population, but we continue to see Canadian medical students unable to secure a residency position on their year of graduation. For each medical graduate produced in Canada, public funds are expended. When these graduates go unmatched, there are delays to their entering practice and providing care to Canadians.
Increasing the number of residency positions to ensure, at a minimum, that there's 110 residency positions for each 100 graduates will reduce the number of unmatched Canadian medical graduates. Federal and provincial leaders must work together to ensure that Canada has the right number of residency positions for the system and adequate flexibility to ensure the success of our learners.
Additional family medicine residency positions should focus on the capacity for training in rural communities to further meet the urgent needs of Canadians.
The AFMC recommends that the Government of Canada work with provincial and territorial governments to increase admissions to medical school to match population growth and that all graduates of Canadian medical schools have access to residency positions upon graduation.
Thank you for your time today. I look forward to answering any questions you may have.
Thank you very much.