Calgary doctor says abuse from patients driving physicians out of family practice

Dr. Farhan Khan says in his over 20 years of practicing as a family physician, he has never seen anything like it.

He’s referring to the unprecedented amount of abuse by patients — and non-patients —  towards doctors and staff. 

Just this week, he came to work only to find  that his clinic in northwest Calgary had been vandalized with spray paint.

“Unfortunately. this is not the first time this has actually happened,” Khan told CityNews. “A couple of months ago we had a window broken, and a couple of years before we had another window broken.

“We’ve also had instances where people would throw something sticky like an egg at the doors,” he said.

His clinic isn’t the only one — Khan says family physicians across Calgary are experiencing similar acts, including one clinic in Montgomery.

“Somebody had vandalized their sign with some racist comments and the same physician had their car windows smashed as well,” he said.

Aside from vandalism, Khan says clinic staff have been subjected to daily threats and harassment.

He even had a patient threaten him with sharp objects.

Khan believes a lot of the abuse stems from patient frustration with the medical system and long wait times.

“It is usually people who are trying to come in, and are either unable to get what they want, or are demanding, or people who are turned away because of the sheer volume of patients we are dealing with,” he said. 

Khan’s TrueCare medical clinic in the northwest is one of the only clinics in the area that sees walk-in patients.

But, with wait times growing to two to three hours, the clinic had to curtail some of their operations, and as of now only accepts their own patients as walk-ins.

“Some of these other patients who are not attached to a family doctor come into the clinic and are told, ‘Hey, the wait times are just too long and we can’t see you. Of course, there is a little bit of shouting and screaming happening on a regular basis because of that,” he said.

On top of the long wait times to see a family doctor, he says patient frustration grows even further when doctors send their patients to get lab work done or to see a specialist and also have to wait for care.

Another source of frustration prompting abuse is patients not receiving the care that they want or demand.

“It’s just layers and layers of frustration that people have to get out one way or another and us being the front line and the first line we have to bear the brunt,” Khan said.

According to Khan, the frequency and level of abuse has deterred people from working in family medicine and has caused family physicians in Calgary to leave the province or retrain in other specialties.