I have a four-hour commute back and forth every time I want to see my doctor. This is insanity.

It’s Easter Monday and I took a vacation day off work. Instead of resting in my home or going to the park, I prepare myself for a full afternoon at the doctor’s office. Or better yet, in the public transit system.

I’m leaving my house at 11:30 am, packed with snacks, a water bottle and a 12-hour-long audiobook. I have to take a subway, a train and a bus to get there. My appointment is at 2:20 pm, and I could technically leave at 12:20, but I don’t want to take any risks. Last time my Family Doctor’s secretary gave me a hard time because I was 3 minutes late (the 3 minutes I’d spent in line to talk to her).

All of that because my Family Doctor’s office is in Brampton, while I live in Toronto, a whooping 45 km away. You might be asking yourself – why did I choose a doctor so far away? The simple answer is that I had no choice.

For those unfamiliar with the Canadian Public Health System: the way it works is that all the primary medical care is done by a Family Doctor (offered for free by the province) and this doctor will refer you to a specialist in case of need. For mild emergencies you have local walk-in clinics and for major emergencies the hospitals.

It all sounds very nice until you add a city with 2.5 million people, a shrinking provincial health budget and a shortage of doctors. And the reality is that getting medical care in Toronto is getting increasingly harder. Today 2,3 million people in Ontario don’t have a Family Doctor, and that number is expected to double in the next years.

In 2022 my Family Doctor moved away and I was about to become part of that statistic. Except I just couldn’t afford it. I depend on daily medication that needs to be prescribed by a doctor. I tried every office I could find and joined several waitlists. Six months of trying and nothing. A friend of mine told me to try the Women’s Clinic, but their waitlist time was at least 3 months and my medication wouldn’t last that long.

I was 10 days away from my last pill when I saw that a doctor’s office in Brampton was taking new patients. I decided to take the shot, considering that many doctors take calls to solve patients’ simple questions. Except he doesn’t take calls. After a little digging, I found out why – the Federal Government stopped paying Family Doctors for virtual or over-the-phone advice. So they just don’t do it anymore.

So here I am, on a 4-hour long journey (counting back and forth) for a 10-minute appointment to solve a simple issue with medication side effects. Honestly, if I didn’t need a prescription and it was a matter of simply asking a question I’d rather consult Google and adjust things on my own.

But unfortunately, not everything in health care can be DIYed. I’ve heard countless stories of mothers who spent more than six hours waiting for care for their children at the hospitals in Toronto. That’s the current reality of the famous Universal Health Care of Canada.

Don’t get me wrong, the service they offer is still top quality. The problem is that many of us just don’t have access to it anymore.