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.
First, here’s the number of registrations per year for each of the health zones since 2016.
| 2023 | 2022 | 2021 | 2020 | 2019 | 2018 | 2017 | 2016 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| South | 591 | 568 | 589 | 607 | 630 | 603 | 585 | 562 |
| Calgary | 5,295 | 5,170 | 4,994 | 4,988 | 4,884 | 4,769 | 4,627 | 4,465 |
| Central | 820 | 794 | 760 | 777 | 753 | 723 | 705 | 697 |
| Edmonton | 4,49 | 4,315 | 4,253 | 4,193 | 4,121 | 4,044 | 3,915 | 3,786 |
| North | 572 | 551 | 545 | 546 | 549 | 535 | 535 | 538 |
There’s some interesting data in there.
Every health zone saw an increase in the number of registered physicians in that zone.
Edmonton saw the largest increase, at 134. That’s a bit surprising, given that they’re the second largest city in the province. However, the largest city, Calgary, had the second highest, at 125.
The South Zone, where Lethbridge is located, saw an increase of 23, which is pretty significant. However, if you compare it to just 2 years ago, we saw an increase of just 2 physician registrations. And it’s still below 2020 and 2019 levels.
In fact, the South Zone had nearly 40 fewer physician registrations last year than they did in 2019. And that’s not even accounting for population growth.
Now, let’s look at Lethbridge physicians specifically. Below is the number of registrations for each quarter since 2016, as well as the quarter-over-quarter percent change.
| Quarter | Registrations | % change |
|---|---|---|
| 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 past three 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.
Not only that, but throughout 2022, 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.
During the second, third, and fourth quarters of 2023, however, the number of physician registrations in Lethbridge had climbed, hitting the 300 mark by the end of the year.
And while that might seem like good news to finally have registrations on the rise again, there is some context to consider.
At the end of 2019, registrations had peaked at 316. That means, that even with an net increase of 25 doctors during the last 3 quarters of 2023, we’re still short 16 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 this year’s census. The ratio of physicians to people has jumped to 1 for every 355.17 people. And that’s assuming no more people moved here in the 7 months that followed.
In other words, each doctor is theoretically responsible for an extra 10 people. And that’s not counting anyone from outside Lethbridge coming into the city to see a doctor.
Next, the % change from quarter to quarter.
Looking at the data this way shows us some interesting information.
First, of the 19 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 0.22% in Lethbridge, which works out to a gain of 1 registration every 2 quarters, on average.
Let’s compare the third quarter of 2023 with previous third quarters.
The fourth quarter of 2023 saw the largest year-over-year increase in the number of registered physicians of the 7 most recent fourth quarters.
For the 5 fourth quarters that the UCP have been in power, we’ve had 2 decreases and 3 increases. We have seen an average fourth quarter change in physician registrations for Lethbridge of 0.55% since 2016 and 0.38% since the UCP have been in power.
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 22 new registrations that took place in Lethbridge in 2023 may have been family physicians, but they may have also been all specialists.
Oh, also, this is just for physician registrations. Just because someone registers as a physician in Alberta doesn’t mean they are practicing in Alberta. Someone could be registered in Alberta but living and practicing in Swift Current or Sparwood, for example.
