WESTLOCK – An unspecified number of Westlock doctors plan to resign from hospital-based practice in favour of their work in clinics after the COVID-19 pandemic unless the provincial government returns to negotiating a master agreement with the Alberta Medical Association.
“Our ask of the government is, first of all, work with us, don’t work against us. Let’s sit down and negotiate an agreement with the AMA because we are the AMA. That’s been asked from the beginning but what’s happened is a big loss of trust in the government or the person representing the government,” said Dr. Vicci Fourie April 30 via Zoom.
The Westlock doctors announced their dissatisfaction with Alberta Health and minister Tyler Shandro in a letter they released the day before, signed by all 18 local doctors (although not all will resign).
“The doctors as a group felt obliged to stand up for our rural patients and we unanimously decided to do this,” said Fourie.
Shandro announced April 24 that his ministry was backtracking on a proposed funding framework for doctors that would’ve stopped remuneration for hospital work. That same day, additional funds were put toward recruitment and retention programs for rural medicine.
Although the changes caused some doctors across the province to rescind their resignation calls – Lac La Biche is one of those places – doctors in Westlock feel there is too much uncertainty coming from the government, something that makes them anxious.
“In reality, what the minister had done was rebrand his previous cuts as gifts to pacify rural MLAs who were angry about the crisis he had caused in their communities,” they wrote in the letter.
Fourie added the subsequent removal of 141 communities from the Rural Remote Northern Program incentives – which the government has since called it a mistake – fueled that anxiety.
“I think (Shandro) kind of missed the point. We weren’t talking about money, it was about sitting down and getting an agreement to have some certainty so we can plan for our future in rural health care and ensure that we have some stability here. I felt that the message to him from us as doctors was totally missed,” said Dr. Stephanie Frigon.
For Dr. Jan Lategan, the problem is that the government tries to portray Albertan doctors as overpaid.
“They always compare it to other provinces, but they don’t realize that because the government has paid sufficiently, we as Albertans really enjoy a great medical program and medical care. I’ve had patients coming from B.C., from Saskatchewan, on waitlists that are horrendously long. Sometimes, you don’t value what you have until you lose it, and that is the risk. The care that has been given for Albertans has been top class.
“I come out of a private hospital in South Africa and this compares very equitable to it and it’s for free,” he said, concluding that the government has lost the focus on patient care.
This lack of stability, doctors say, is also affecting recruitment efforts.
As for Athabasca-Barrhead-Westlock MLA Glenn van Dijken, he says the decision to resign is up to the doctors.
“My work over the past six months has been to encourage the ministry to recognize this discrepancy (between rural and urban medicine) and to deal with it. I believe that the AMA does not want to deal with it, they have continued to stifle the ability for there to be more incentive to get rural doctors, but I believe the ministry is able to move in that direction now,” said van Dijken.
The previous master agreement, van Dijken commented, offered limited ability to differentiate between urban and rural doctors, and help the latter with recruitment.
“That’s why communities had to step up, that’s why communities had to put all the incentives into it to try to get rural physicians out there. I believe that’s a failure of the master agreement. … I see the AMA using the rural doctors, which represent about seven per cent of their members, as a tool to try and get advantages for all doctors, and that’s their job, to work on behalf of all their members.”
For van Dijken, it’s the AMA that’s not willing to work on delineating the differences between rural and urban medicine.
Doctors in Pincher Creek are also planning to resign. In Lac La Biche, doctors there retracted their similar call after Shandro announced they’ll be receiving pay for in-hospital work.
Replacement doctors
If the existing doctors leave the Westlock Healthcare Centre, it’ll be incumbent on Alberta Health Services to find replacement physicians.
“If doctors are deciding that they want to withdraw hospital services, there is enough capacity within AHS to provide that service. The service will not decline within the Westlock area at all,” said van Dijken.
NDP health critic David Shepherd, however, commented that there is no surplus of doctors existing in the province.
“When I look at the AHS website and the current vacancies in the province of Alberta, I see a number of sites that have been unable to recruit. I heard from the mayor of Lac La Biche how it took him 15 years working with the local chamber of commerce and others to attract the physicians they have now,” said Shepherd.
Although Fourie said he won’t speculate on whether or not AHS is prepared to do so successfully, the 18 signatories of the letter collectively wrote that “though the government has assured us that this would not be a problem as they have “replacement physicians” available, we doubt whether they in fact exist.”
“If there’s an overabundance of doctors, I just want to pose the question: “Why don’t we have them here? Why can’t we find doctors? Why are there so many open positions in the north zone?” said Fourie.
Calls for resignation
Shepherd renewed calls for Shandro’s resignation April 30, quoting from the Westlock doctors’ letter.
“Total incompetence, total dishonesty,” said Shepherd about Shandro’s management of what he called a “health care crisis.”
But Westlock doctors say they have no intention of politicizing the issue.
“We want to speak the truth and give you the facts. We can’t comment on something that we haven’t heard,” said Fourie, who didn’t know about Shepherd’s press conference.
In the letter, they had this to say about Shandro: “We are worried that the minister is too blind to admit what he does not know and too proud to accept help; none of us would presume we are well-versed enough in brain surgery to start cutting our patients without experience.”
Andreea Resmerita, TownandCountryToday.com
Follow me on Twitter @andreea_res
