Talks over doctors’ pay won’t heal all that ails Alberta’s health care
For several weeks the Alberta government and doctors have been at odds over physicians’ pay.
At issue are a number of changes the government wants to make to the schedule of fees paid for a long list of services that doctors provide, not unlike the list of charges you see when you take your car to a mechanic.
While the two parties wrangle over this, we might want to remind them of things going on in the health-care system that these negotiations will not fix. A couple of short stories should do the trick.
A friend of mine has a teenage son who suffers from headaches. The son was referred to a headache specialist who prescribed drugs.
When the drugs didn’t appear to work, my friend asked for a referral to a clinic that included headache specialists and psychologists to help with pain management and coping.
My friend was told only the family doctor could make referrals because family physicians were responsible for co-ordinating patient care. Fair enough.
My friend and her son went to see the family doctor and much to their horror discovered that the family doctor, who was responsible for co-ordinating care, did not know what drugs her son was on or that there were ongoing problems.
Apparently, the headache specialist had not shared any information with the family doctor.
Luckily, my friend had the information handy and was able to update the family doctor. But she left wondering why the one doctor wasn’t talking to the other doctor since, in theory, they were both responsible for her teenager’s care.
Another friend of mine and his family moved to Alberta recently and wanted to find a family doctor.
Through the grapevine, they found a website listing doctors who are taking on new patients.
My friend contacted a Primary Care Network and was told to register to get an interview with a doctor. So on one day he stood in line to set up the interview. On another day he actually got to see the doctor.
During that interview, he managed to have some urgent prescriptions refilled.
About a month after this initial appointment, he received an email form letter from the doctor indicating she had decided to move her practice to another Alberta city and that my friend would have to go back to the Primary Care Network and line up again to book another appointment to be interviewed by another doctor.
My friend has given up on family doctors in Alberta and will probably go to the hospital emergency room or a walk-in clinic if he needs care.
Given the many billions of taxpayer dollars being invested in Alberta’s healthcare system, why haven’t we fixed these basic problems?
While we all like to blame the government, it just pays the bills. Doctors are at the centre of the system and make many of the key decisions affecting our health care.
So maybe after the government and the doctors are finished fighting over how much more we will pay doctors, someone can get back to trying to get doctors to share information with each other (and other health providers) about their patients and provide Albertans with access to basic primary care.
Every time the government and the doctors get into these negotiations, we are told the extra money given to doctors will lead to real improvements in health care, yet nothing ever seems to really change.
The new Family Care Clinics proposed by the government might actually address some of the real issues in health care — providing the government is allowed to get them up and running.