Towards a healthier Canada: Transforming the community-based consultant paediatric workforce

Health care is a public good and social right in Canada. Yet, the paediatric workforce is increasingly strained, jeopardizing timely and readily available health care access for Canadian children and youth. While there have been welcome funding interventions to support efforts of dedicated paediatric centres, the significant amount of paediatric health care provided in the myriad contexts comprising the community has received less attention. This Commentary examines the current state of the community-based consultant paediatric (CBCP) workforce, highlighting a lack of comprehensive data and raising questions about the utility of current training models. In turn, it argues for strategies that lay the groundwork to improve data collection, centre voices of CBCPs and patients in policies and practices, and better support CBCPs in ways that may lead to a sustainable consultant paediatric workforce equitably distributed and effectively trained to deliver the kinds of health care that Canada's children need from coast to coast to coast.