Recently, I wrote a news story about the number of registered physicians in Alberta.
I decided to go through the physician registrations from the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Alberta to see what information I could find about doctors in the Lethbridge region specifically, rather than the province as a whole.
Below is the number of registrations for each quarter since 2016, as well as the quarter-over-quarter percent change.
| Quarter | Registrations | % change |
|---|---|---|
| 2024 Q1 | 303 | 1.00% |
| 2023 Q4 | 300 | 3.09% |
| 2023 Q3 | 291 | 4.30% |
| 2023 Q2 | 279 | 1.45% |
| 2023 Q1 | 275 | -1.08% |
| 2022 Q4 | 278 | 1.46% |
| 2022 Q3 | 274 | -1.44% |
| 2022 Q2 | 278 | 0.72% |
| 2022 Q1 | 276 | -4.50% |
| 2021 Q4 | 289 | -2.69% |
| 2021 Q3 | 297 | 1.71% |
| 2021 Q2 | 292 | -0.34% |
| 2021 Q1 | 293 | -2.98% |
| 2020 Q4 | 302 | -2.58% |
| 2020 Q3 | 310 | 5.44% |
| 2020 Q2 | 294 | 1.03% |
| 2020 Q1 | 291 | -7.91% |
| 2019 Q4 | 316 | 2.60% |
| 2019 Q3 | 308 | 4.76% |
| 2019 Q2 | 294 | 1.03% |
| 2019 Q1 | 291 | -0.34% |
| 2018 Q4 | 292 | 2.46% |
| 2018 Q3 | 285 | 1.42% |
| 2018 Q2 | 281 | 1.81% |
| 2018 Q1 | 276 | -2.13% |
| 2017 Q4 | 282 | -1.05% |
| 2017 Q3 | 285 | 4.01% |
| 2017 Q2 | 274 | 0.74% |
| 2017 Q1 | 272 | 0.74% |
| 2016 Q4 | 270 | 1.12% |
| 2016 Q3 | 267 | 2.30% |
| 2016 Q2 | 261 | 0.38% |
| 2016 Q1 | 260 | -0.01% |
Here it is in graph form.
First, the total number of registrations.
We see that more or less, physician registrations in Lethbridge had been rising for about 4 years, hitting their peak in the final quarter of 2019. Over the next 2 years or so, however, the numbers had been dropping. There was a bit of a surge during the start of the pandemic, but the next 10 quarters completely wiped out those gains.
The decline stopped in 2022, after physician registrations were at some of their lowest levels since the 2nd quarter of 2017, when they were at 274. During 2022, registrations hovered around the 276 mark, varying between only 274 and 278.
While registrations stopped declining in 2022, they didn’t rebound either, plateauing for the entire year until finally starting to rise in the second quarter of last year. They’ve been on the rise ever since.
And while it’s definitely good news that we have more doctors today than we had two years ago, we must view this increase in context.
At the end of 2019, registrations had peaked at 316. That means, that even with an net increase of 28 doctors over the last 4 quarters, we’re still short 13 physician registrations.
Keep in mind that the population of Lethbridge has also increased during that time, which means that not only do we have fewer registered physicians, but the ones we do have are having to serve more people.
During the 2019 municipal census, the City of Lethbridge reported a population of 101,482. That means 1 doctor for every 345.18 people.
By comparison, there were 106,550 people living in Lethbridge in 2023, according to last year’s census. The ratio of physicians to people has jumped to 1 for every 351.65 people.
In other words, each doctor is theoretically responsible for an extra 6 or 7 people. And that’s not counting anyone from outside Lethbridge coming into the city to see a doctor. Plus, it’s assuming no more people moved here in the 9 months that followed last year’s census.
Next, the % change from quarter to quarter.
Looking at the data this way shows us some interesting information.
First, of the 18 quarters that the UCP government have been in power, 8 of them had negative growth. Not only that, but 5 of them were larger decreases than the other 4 periods of decreases in the previous 3 years.
In fact, in the first quarter of 2020—the start of the COVID-19 pandemic—Lethbridge saw its largest single decrease in physician registrations during this 5-year period.
Lethbridge lost 25 physician registrations as the pandemic was starting. That’s 1 in 13 physicians.
If we average all the increases and decreases since the UCP took office, we see a net increase of 0.2% in Lethbridge, which works out to a gain of just 1 registration every quarter, on average.
Let’s compare the first quarter of 2024 with previous first quarters.
The first quarter of 2024 saw the largest year-over-year increase in the number of registered physicians of the 8 most recent first quarters.
For the 5 first quarters that the UCP have been in power, we’ve had 2 decreases, 2 increases, and one first quarter with no change. We have seen an average first quarter change in physician registrations for Lethbridge of 2.44% since 2016, but it’s been just 0.94% for the first quarters under the UCP.
So, while it’s great we sawa huge year-over-year jump last quarter, we’re going to need more than just one large increase to make up for the large losses over the previous 4 years.
Keep in mind that College of Physicians and Surgeons of Alberta doesn’t break down the area of speciality of the physician registrations at the municipality level.
That means the 13 new registrations that took place in Lethbridge over the last year may have been family physicians, but they may have also been all specialists.
