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Peace Health Care Coalition formed, McLennan physician recruitment continues
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The local recruitment committee will keep looking for doctors to practice in McLennan, says chair Myrna Lanctot.
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Susan Thompson
for Smoky River Express
Over 40 health care advocates met in Grande Prairie on July 20 and agreed to form a coalition to advocate for the protection and expansion of public health services in the Peace.
The meeting featured a round-table discussion moderated by David Eggen, Executive Director of Friends of Medicare.
“All the people at the meeting on Saturday could identify with a significant health care issue in their community that had started to bend under the strain of neglect,” said coalition spokesperson and Secretary Andony Melathopoulos.
“Some specific situations include the dismal state of the Grande Prairie Care Centre, the frustrated efforts to recruit much-needed rural physicians to Smoky River and district, and the failure to follow through with commitments to replace both the Grande Prairie and Beaverlodge hospitals.”
Other common concerns included the shortage of long-term care beds, lack of resources for mental health care and seniors advocacy, and difficulty retaining health care professionals.
Three community groups made presentations, including the Friends of the Beaverlodge Hospital, the Central Peace Health Council and the Smoky River and District Health Task Force. The latter two groups were created after the government decided to disband Alberta’s 59 community health councils and replace them with 12 health advisory councils. The former community health councils in the McLennan and Spirit River areas both decided to continue meeting under new names, in hopes of ensuring local and rural issues continue to be heard by the government.
“There has been a big shift in how health services are being managed in the province. We have gone from an elected health board with community health councils, to a single appointed board with a much more consolidated advisory council. There is a real danger that the specific health care needs of communities in the Peace will not be registered in this shift; we risk losing some very important parts of our local health care system,” said Melathopoulos.
The new coalition hopes to strengthen the voice of communities in the Peace by consolidating the efforts of everyone currently working and advocating for improved health care.
For its part, the Smoky River Regional Physician Recruitment and Retention Committee also met last week to plan its future actions after two doctors the committee had recruited were told they couldn’t practice in the area.
Dr. Cheddie and Dr. Singh, a husband and wife team, had been expected to practice medicine in McLennan, Slave Lake, and High Prairie. But Alberta Health Services (AHS) decided not to allow the doctors to practice in those areas.
The recruitment committee sent a letter to President and CEO of AHS Dr. Stephen Duckett asking for clarification as to why the doctors were told to go somewhere else, and received a faxed reply on July 16.
“We’re very happy because we got a swift response back,” said Myrna Lanctot, chair of the recruitment committee.
“But we remain disappointed the doctors are not able to come to our community.”
In their faxed response, AHS said at this time it wasn’t clear to them that there was a sufficient fee for service income to support both of the doctors recruited.
The health authority grants, or does not grant, physicians “privileges” that govern their ability to access the services of a health care facility, such as operating room privileges. Physicians then operate on a “fee for service” basis.
They must also cover their own overhead costs and generate a profit based on the fees they earn in their practice, meaning they are more like small businesses than employees. So while doctors are not really “hired,” in order to admit patients to hospital or perform surgeries there, they need to be granted privileges by AHS to use local public health care facilities.
AHS did confirm in its faxed response that physician recruitment is still taking place across the province, and said that community involvement in recruitment is still important.
“Our committee will keep working with AHS to determine how their recruitment and our own will work best together,” said Lanctot.
“We know more services can provide local and rural hospital sites with a better quality of life. [AHS does] recognize there is a need for overall service delivery throughout the north zone.”
The recruitment committee will continue looking for physicians to fill the local community’s needs.
The committee is also writing a response to the fax thanking AHS for its response, and hopes the exchange of letters is opening the door to more frequent, clear communication with the new provincial superboard.
But coalition spokesperson Melathopoulos said the confusion over physician recruitment in the Smoky River district is a symptom of the need for a stronger local voice on health issues.
“This is a perfect example of how the failure of have a local voice at the table will end up costing our communities a lot of wasted time, and will ultimately make the health system less effective and more costly to operate. The coalition is a vehicle for making sure this voice gets heard,” he said.
The new coalition will meet for the first time in August, and is currently seeking board members. Coalition members expect to prepare a public education and lobbying campaign to be launched in September.
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