LETHBRIDGE, ALTA –
Lethbridge has added 28 physicians over the past year, according to a quarterly report published by the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Alberta.
That pushes the total number of doctors to 303 for the city of nearly 108,000.
The 28 new doctors is an increase of just over 10 per cent from the previous year. However, a backlog of patients is preventing doctors from accepting new patients.
“Physicians right now are all overburdened with 2000 or more patients, whereas the average physician should have around 1,000,” said Bev Muendel-Atherstone, the Lethbridge chapter president for Friends of Medicare.
“So if a new general practitioner comes into a clinic then they would take on half of another physician’s caseload.”
According to AlbertaFindADoctor.ca, there are no family physicians in Lethbridge currently accepting patients.
That leaves tens of thousands of …