Janet Mort finally found a doctor for her ailing husband Michael, but it took an ad in the newspaper to do it..The resident of Brentwood Bay, north of Victoria, B.C., placed an ad on page A2 in Saturday July 30 edition of the Times Columnist. It read,.Wanted: Licensed medical doctor for prescription renewal. .Urgent! Please?.We need a doctor’s help to renew my 82-year-old husband’s prescriptions. We will agree to any reasonable fee: Michael is worth it...and we seem to have exhausted all our options. Our wonderful family doctor retired at Christmas. No walk-in clinics seem to be available. Today even Telus Health MyCare had no Dr. virtual appointments available for months..In an interview with Western Standard, Mort said five doctors responded by the email included in the ad, and they have an appointment booked with the one they chose. She’d seen the ad reposted six times on social media and felt compelled to respond..“Her practice is full. So right now, [her name remains] anonymous, because imagine what would happen if someone found out she took a patient? Her hallways would be full of people banging on her door and saying, ‘Why not me’?”.Mort says her husband needs more than medication. She fears he might have cancer..“I need a urologist for Michael. And because he's got symptoms of what is typically a male condition that comes with age, with the prostate. But Michael's suffering, and it's months now, and who knows what's happening in there,” Mort said..“I have friends who've gone through the radiation procedure. If that's what Michael needs, he needs it — but he needs it now. He doesn't need months more of waiting and just dying from it.”.The ad made news nationwide, and prompted old friends, family members, and “hundreds” in the same plight to contact Mort..“I have a sister who called me from Nanaimo when she opened the newspaper and saw the ad,” Mort recalled..“And her words were, ‘Well, Terry and I have doctors and we've always been really sympathetic to people who don't. But I had no idea that someone like you would end up with no doctor.’”.Mort was surprised herself when other family members told her of similar situations. Her 81-year-old brother from Quebec phoned to say for years he has commuted back to Toronto to see the doctor he had while living there. A 30-year-old granddaughter also in the Victoria area said she and her 9-year-old autistic son were losing their doctor to a move..“My beautiful great-grandson…is doing really well at age nine at finding his way through autism in a world that generally doesn't accept autistic people easily. He's learning how to integrate. But his mother needs the support of medical practitioners to help her keep him there. So it's not just seniors [who need a doctor], it's challenged children. It's indigenous people,” Mort said..“It's not just BC, it's Canada. It's Quebec, it's Ontario. Ontario is almost as bad as BC. But you know, we can do something about this.”.BC Premier John Horgan said yesterday he’s thinking about using the same tactic in an attempt to pressure the federal government to increase health funding..The country’s premiers lobbied the federal government for increased health funding last month during meetings in Victoria, Horgan said..About a million people in B.C. don’t have a family doctor..Mort is familiar with bringing change. The former school principal was concerned about students with poor literacy and sought answers. She was part of the Sullivan Royal Commission and implemented its 89 recommendations in her later position as superintendent of educational innovation for the province of B.C..Mort earned a PhD in early learning in her ‘60s, and was awarded the Order of B.C. in 2020. The longtime advocate for literacy now wants to spearhead change in the health care system..“What I'm discovering is the lucky people who have doctors don't know they're lucky. They don't know that with a [doctor’s] decision to retire, with a decision to move somewhere else, with a decision that medicine is too painful a profession to be in, they're going to be in my shoes having to do what I had to do to get help for Michael. But that's the sad story,” Mort said..“We've got to take it seriously. Here are premiers lobbying with the prime minister for more money for health. Why doesn't the country put its head together and create a system that would vie with Finland or other countries who have really strong health systems?”
