When Simon McNeil and his wife, Pam Han, moved to rural Prince Edward Island from Toronto in 2018, they were looking for somewhere a little quieter to live.
They had no idea this decision would mean years of radio silence from the province’s patient registry — P.E.I.’s waiting list for family doctors. “As soon as we moved here, we started looking for a family doctor, and we got on the waiting list,” McNeil said in an interview from his home in New Glasgow, P.E.I. “At that time, we were told (the wait) was about two years.
Sometime later, that estimate was changed to four years and now it’s looking more like eight.” If the couple or their daughter gets sick or needs refills for necessary prescriptions, they must go to a walk-in clinic.
But this has become almost impossible over the last two years, as clinics in P.E.I. have been filling up within minutes of opening, Han said.