Recent immigrants less likely to have family doctor

A Western-led study based on the Canadian Community Health Survey compared recent and established immigrants on whether or not they had a regular health-care provider, and the number of times they accessed the health-care system. (Los Muertos Crew/Pexels) - Recent immigrants to Canada face barriers to accessing primary care and may be missing out on the benefits that come with having a family physician. Research from Western University, recently published in BMC Primary Care , shows that new immigrants to Canada are almost half as likely to have a family physician than established immigrants. Dr. Nisanthini Ravichandiran is a family physician who completed the research as a master of clinical science student in the department of family medicine. "We know there are barriers to access even in a place like Canada, where we have publicly funded health care, but what hasn't been studied until now was how the length of time an immigrant has been in Canada impacts access to health care," said Dr. Nisanthini Ravichandiran, a family physician who completed the research as a master of clinical science student in the department of family medicine at Schulich Medicine & Dentistry. "This research illuminates the fact that recent immigrants are a special population who are often unfamiliar with the health-care system and may not have the social supports to help them navigate that system." Ravichandiran now practices family medicine in Scarborough. She says the impetus for the study came from watching her parents navigate the health-care system when they immigrated to Canada when she was a child, and then seeing in her clinical practice how complex the system can be for recent immigrants with no prior knowledge of the role of family physicians in Canada.