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The Kitchener Chronicle Kitchener · Waterloo · Ontario
Ontario

Ontario's family-doctor shortage reaches Waterloo Region's suburbs

One in five residents of the townships is now without a family physician, the health team's new count shows.

By Chronicle Staff· Published August 24, 2026 ·1 min read

The Ontario health team's new attachment count puts one in five township residents without a family physician, a figure that was one in nine when the count began in 2022.

The shortage has moved outward: the cities held roughly steady while Wellesley, Wilmot and Woolwich absorbed the retirements of four practices with no successors.

The health team's recruitment fund has landed three physicians this year. The four retiring practices carried eleven thousand patients between them.