When Dr. Archna Gupta joined a Toronto family health team in 2022, she was surprised by how many patients lived far away from the downtown clinic.

Some were making the trek from the GTA or the Niagara region, while others lived in Collingwood, Sarnia or even Ottawa, a five-hour drive.

Curious, Gupta asked her patients why they had chosen to stick with a Toronto doctor after moving away from the city. For some, remaining with the clinic that had overseen their care for years felt like the best choice. But many of the long-distance patients said they had no other option.

“They couldn’t find a doctor locally, so they wanted to stay attached to me,” said Gupta, a family doctor at St. Michael’s Hospital. “Because having someone far away was better than having no one at all.”

Those patient c

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