Abstracts
Abstract
Francophones are an official language minority in Ontario with limited access to linguistically concordant healthcare services. Although communication is an important skill in the field of pharmacy, little is known about the availability of French-speaking pharmacists. This secondary data analysis of the Ontario College of Pharmacists registry converted weekly hours worked into full-time equivalents (FTEs) and calculated ratios of pharmacist FTEs per 1,000 population. French-speaking pharmacists tended to offer fewer FTEs in communities with a larger concentration of Francophones, particularly in northern and rural areas, a trend that was not observed among English-speaking pharmacists. This maldistribution of French-speaking pharmacists may limit the ability of official language minority patients to receive pharmacy services in their language of choice.
Keywords:
- English,
- pharmacists,
- Francophones,
- linguistic concordance,
- geographic distribution,
- French-language health services
Résumé
Les francophones sont une minorité linguistique en Ontario avec un accès limité aux services de soins de santé en français. Bien que la communication soit une compétence importante dans le domaine de la pharmacie, on en connait peu sur la disponibilité des pharmaciens francophones. Cette analyse de données secondaires du registre de l’Ordre des pharmaciens de l’Ontario a permis de convertir les heures hebdomadaires travaillées en équivalents temps plein (ETP) et de calculer des ratios d’ETP pour 1000 habitants. Les pharmaciens francophones avaient tendance à offrir moins d’ETP dans les communautés à plus forte concentration de francophones, en particulier dans les régions nordiques et rurales, une tendance qui n’a pas été observée chez les pharmaciens anglophones. Cette mauvaise répartition des pharmaciens francophones peut limiter la capacité des patients de langue officielle minoritaire à recevoir des services pharmaceutiques dans la langue de leur choix.
Mots-clés :
- pharmaciens,
- francophones,
- concordance linguistique,
- distribution géographique,
- service de santé en français
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Appendices
Acknowledgements
We thank the Ontario College of Pharmacists for entering into an agreement to share their data with us. Funding for this study was provided by the Consortium National de Formation en Santé (CNFS) – Volet Université Laurentienne and Volet Collège Boréal, as well as the Government of Ontario, Ontario Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care (MOHLTC, ministry grant no. 6674).
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