A new study from the Canadian Institute for Health Information (CIHI) shows that family physicians are increasingly providing specialty care amid continued strain on the health care system — the result of an alarming number of job vacancies since the pandemic.

CIHI says 28 per cent of family physicians in Canada provided specialty care in 2021, an increase from 24.5 per cent in 2013.

According to the study, health care job vacancies more than doubled to 120,000 in 2022-23, from just under 50,000 in the year before the pandemic stuck.

Personal support workers, registered nurses, registered psychiatric nurses and mental health workers accounted for two-thirds of all health care job vacancies in 2022-23.

CIHI says an “unprecedented amount of overtime was logged by hospital staff” at the height of the pandemic in 2021-2022, amounting to more than 26 million hours, which is equivalent to more than 13,000 full-time positions.