“Our health-care system is in crisis,” according to the president of the Yukon Medical Association (YMA).

After declining to comment last week following Dr. David Storey’s blistering letter to The Yukon Star on problems in the health-care system, Dr. Alex Kmet has broken his silence with a letter of his own.

If the problems aren’t solved, wrote Storey, who calls himself “a citizen, elder and MD,” the territory will require the establishment of private hospitals, he added. The current 1990s-era hospital and staff are simply too small for the Yukon’s rapidly rising population.

In his letter, posted today on the Star’s website, Kmet  writes “more than 17 per cent of Yukoners lack access to a family doctor. According to the most recent YMA physician survey, 41 per cent of our current family doctors plan to close their practices in the next five years and 64 per cent of patients attached to those doctors could be orphaned.”

Kmet adds “furthermore, our surgical services and hospital system do not have adequate infrastructure to meet current demands, let alone support future growth.”

Canadian Institute for Health Information data show the Yukon has spent the least on health per capita of all three territories, Kmet notes. 

“Our surgical services and hospital system will not sustainably meet the needs of Yukoners without upgraded infrastructure. While the costs of infrastructure upgrades are high, they are necessary for ensuring that every Yukoner receives the best health care possible now and into the future.

“We need to see concrete investments in our health-care system because the status quo cannot be tolerated,” he writes.