The health system in Canada and Ontario is faced with shortages of health professionals in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. Added to this is long-term rising demand for services because of an aging population as well as the impending retirement of large numbers of health professionals given the age distribution of the health work force. Access to physicians – particularly family physicians - has been a long-standing issue in Canadian health care. Yet, it remains that despite the constant perceived shortages, physician supply has been increasing. Figure 1 and 2 present physicians per 100,00 population in Canada followed by Ontario for the period 1978 to 2020. The plots use data from the Canadian Institute for Health Information/Scott’s Medical Data Base (CIHI/SMDB) and show physician intensity for total physicians as well as specialists and family physicians.
After a period of growth from the late 1970s to the early 1990s, physician intensity showed little growth for nearly 15 years. Starting approximately 2005, the number of physicians per 100,000 began to increase. In Canada, total physicians per 100,000 rose from 190 to 242 between 2005 and 2020 – an increase of 27 percent. Specialist density rose from 93 to 119 (28 percent growth) while family medicine physicians rose from 98 to 123 (a 26 percent increase). Ontario exhibits a similar profile to Canada except that the 1990s to 2005 saw a more pronounced decline in physician density – particularly in family practice. Since 2005, the total number of physicians per 100,000 rose from 177 to 232 – an increase of 31 percent. Specialists grew from 92 per 100,000 to 114 – an increase of 24 percent – while family practice physicians rose from 85 per 100,000 to 115 – a 35 percent increase.
Ontario was hit harder than Canada by the decline in physician intensity of the 1990s as shown in Figure 3 which plots total physicians per 100,000 population for Ontario and Canada. Up until the early 1990s, Ontario’s physician density was a bit above Canada but since then a persistent gap has opened up. In 2020, Ontario had about 5 percent fewer physicians per 100,000 relative to Canada as a whole. But the rest of Canada need not feel too smug. When compared to the OECD countries or the G-7, Canada and Ontario do not fare particularly well with respect to physician numbers. As Figure 4 illustrates for the period 2000 to 2020, Canada and Ontario are at the bottom of the G-7 countries as well as well below the OECD average.
Germany and Italy are at the top of the G7 at 447 and 400 physicians per 100,000 population respectively. The OECD average is 366. In 2020, Canada was 34 percent below the OECD average with respect to physician density while Ontario was 37 percent lower. Canada gets by with many fewer physicians relative to other economically developed countries and Ontario gets by with even less. While there has been substantial growth in physician density in Canada and Ontario since 2005, in Ontario population has also been growing quickly and actually outstripped physician growth since 2018 actually resulting in a drop in the number of physicians per 100,000.