About a million Ontarians don't have a doctor, even though there are 4,000 foreign-trained doctors ready and willing to work.
Dr. Qais Ghanem hosts a weekly radio on CHIN Radio called Dialogue with Diversity. He recently hosted a show with doctors about their frustrations.
"(The shortage) is not going to go away until somebody does something about it," he said. "If nothing's done, there will be 10 million Canadians who do not have family doctors."
Ghanem is a practicing neurophysiologist. He says international medical doctors could easily fill the shortage.
"The main stumbling block or the bottle neck is in fact the places for training these physicians after they take these exams and pass them," he said.
Jackie Zeng is one example. As the chief scientist of the neurology department at a prominent hospital in China, she came to Canada in 2001 with big hopes. She tried for two years to practice in Canada before giving up.
"At that time I thought if I work hard enough, I should be able to become a neurologist," she said.
But she doesn't see patients anymore. She works as a clerk in an office instead.
Dr. Ah Yin Eng is trying to change cases like Zeng's with a personal campaign to push the government into increasing training spots.
The Ontario government has more than doubled the number of training spots from 90 to 200. But Eng says more must be done. So far, 1,500 people have joined his cause.
"If there's no public funding, we are prepared to donate money to fund these additional positions," he said.
A desperate measure in desperate times, but if the government doesn't make use of the foreign-trained doctors ready to work, they say Ontario's shortage will go from bad to worse.
With a report from CTV's Aliya Jiwan
