Some years ago we were able to get a family doctor who had her own little walk-in clinic. The waiting room always had some patients in it, but she would see you within an hour.

Since the pandemic the clinic is mostly empty because she no longer accepts walk-ins and even patients in her roster must get a telephone appointment first before even having the possibility of meeting her in person. And when you have an in-person appointment it only takes a day or two and when you arrive you can see that there are no patients before or after you -- she must be seeing very few people per day.

Her case isn't unique. It is difficult to find walk-in clinics anymore, and family doctors accepting new patients were already unicorns before the pandemic. Why is this happening? What sort of incentives and disincentives in the system turned regular doctors into hermits that do a fraction of the work they used to? Large swaths of the population are not receiving any medical care at all and we are considering to move out of the country.