Alberta doctors say health-care system ‘in crisis’
Letter cites shortages in staffing, beds
Nearly 200 Alberta doctors have gone public to warn that their province’s health-care system is in crisis.
The doctors say the situation is a result of both the pandemic’s impact on the system and of government policies that have left health workers and patients in the lurch.
In an open letter signed by 192 doctors and released Wednesday, the doctors say they are “increasingly unable” to meet their professional commitments to provide comprehensive and accessible care.
“The system is in crisis and it is becoming progressively more difficult to just do the basic tenets of emergency care provision,” said Dr. Allison Foran, an emergency room doctor based in Calgary who signed the letter.
The letter highlights three areas where they say gaps in patient care are most concerning: lack of access to primary care; a shortage of hospital beds; and critical health-care labour shortages.
It lists examples of how gaps in service delivery are affecting patients: They say that increased waiting times in Calgary’s emergency departments mean patients have to wait up to 15 hours to see a doctor, and that it’s not uncommon to see 40 or 50 people at any given time in the emergency department.
While the letter emphasizes the situation in Calgary, it adds that “signs of a capacity crisis are everywhere” and that rural areas are also suffering from staff shortages and intermittent closures of their emergency departments.
The letter states there are gaps in surgical and cardiac specialist coverage in Calgary’s hospitals and that sections of emergency departments are “routinely closed” due to lack of specialized emergency nurses — something Foran has witnessed in her work.
“I cannot remember the last time that I went to work where we had the entirety of the emergency room open,” she said. “That is a direct effect of policy that has affected our emergency room workforce.
“So what that means for citizens of Calgary, for your grandma, for your kid who’s fallen on the playground is that when you go into that emergency room … we’re looking at 50 people in the waiting room waiting hours and hours and hours. And we just physically cannot connect with you because of these other things that have rendered big parts of the department unusable.”
As further evidence of challenges faced by the health-care system and those who work in it, the letter says there are about 650,000 Albertans without a family doctor, which forces them to attend emergency departments as a last resort and leads to worse outcomes for chronic health issues.
The doctors say the payment structure imposed by Alberta Health discourages physicians from working in family medicine and incentivizes them to pursue specialty roles. This has led to the
The letter says there are about 650,000 Albertans without a family doctor, which forces them to attend emergency departments as a last resort
loss of family doctors to other provinces, countries and private clinics, the letter says.
They say there are a “shocking” 42 residency training positions in family medicine in Alberta that went unfilled this year after the first round of matching, compared to two spots in British Columbia and zero in Saskatchewan.
“The future looks bleak for primary care in this province when we cannot fill positions designated to train the next generation of family doctors.”
They say a scarcity of long-termcare spaces is resulting in many hospital patients having nowhere to be discharged, which adds further pressure on emergency departments.
The dynamics are having a direct impact on nurses, the letter states, who were already mandated to work overtime during the pandemic and often faced hostility from patients who were frustrated by long wait times to see a doctor.
This was exacerbated by a government proposal to cut pay for nurses, the letter says.
The doctors are calling on the Alberta government and Alberta Health Services to recognize the crisis, allocate additional resources to health care and restore “what was once a respectful relationship with front-line health care workers.”
In a statement, Alberta Health Services said “We acknowledge the concerns expressed by some of our physicians. AHS has reached out directly and offered to meet.”