| In 1984 in its report on physician planning for
Canada for the period 1980 to 2000, the Federal and Provincial Advisory
Committee on Health Manpower identified a series of recommended
population-to-physician ratios by physician specialties. Although
these have been criticized (refer to for example, Roos et al. 1997),
the Committee did recommend that a ratio of 1307:1 would be a suitable
target for family physicians. The target figure of 1300:1 has been
recommended by other bodies as well. Following the pattern of the
other two maps (Population-to-Physician and Population-to-Specialist),
this figure, rounded to 1300:1, has been used to create four mapping
classes. Two of the mapping classes (392:1 to 649:1 and 650:1 to
1299:1) show regions of Canada that have ratios that are significantly
and slightly lower than the recommended ratio while the remaining
two mapping classes (1300:1 to 1949:1 and 1950:1 to 8901:1) would
indicate areas that are slightly or significantly higher.
Neither rural areas nor urban areas predominate with respect to
any specific range of the family physician ratios. As this map shows,
some rural areas appear to be well served while others are not.
A similar statement could apply to urban areas. In contrast to the
distribution of physician specialists, family physicians are much
more ubiquitous in terms of their presence in virtually all census
divisions of Canada. |
