In the April issue of Canadian Family Physician, Dr Hooker paints a very clear picture of several challenges that primary care providers face when caring for disadvantaged populations.1 But in a universal health care system like Canada’s, not every health care provider who cares for individuals living in poverty has specifically chosen to do so. In Ontario, every primary care model cares for poor patients,2 but there are some practices that might attempt to “screen out” such clientele.3 Dr Hooker is quite right that we need settings in which teams of professionals work with disadvantaged communities to deliver a spectrum of care, from addressing the social determinants of health to providing comprehensive primary care. In our universal health care system, all health care providers must have nonjudgmental attitudes toward poor patients, as well as knowledge about and access to the resources that address the special issues of people living in poverty.
Footnotes
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Competing interests
Dr Muldoon practises in a community health centre.
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