Stethascope

By Sheldon Spackman

Rocky Doctors Give Notice

Doctors commence service reduction in Alberta rural communities

Apr 21, 2020 | 1:51 PM

RED DEER, AB. — A growing list of Alberta doctors is warning of a looming health care crisis in rural areas of the province.

The Rural Sustainability Group – a grassroots physician movement aimed at drawing attention to the issue – says widespread service losses can be expected for rural communities due to changes imposed by the provincial government on March 31 to the way doctors can bill for service.

A survey conducted by group reveals 47 per cent of the over 300 doctors who responded have already been forced to decrease their hospital-based services by July as a result of those changes.

Dr. Edward Aasman, President of the Alberta Medical Association Section of Rural Medicine and a family physician in Rocky Mountain House, says the loss of rural doctors has already begun.

“In my own community before this started, we were still looking for four physicians to join us and to provide the care needed for Rocky Mountain House,” he exclaims. “What we’re looking at and what we’re hearing is there was going to be some physician loss. Our concern was that if this does not go unchecked, we’re going to be in a real crisis once we get finished this pandemic.”

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The Rocky Medical Clinic where Dr. Aasman practices announced Monday that its doctors have given 90 days’ notice to Alberta Health Services that they plan to resign their AHS privileges to work at the town’s hospital. The doctors say they’re doing it to help their clinic open, acknowledging it leaves a “huge loss in the community” when it comes to covering hospital services.

“As physicians, we have to take a look at where can we provide the biggest bang for our group, depending on how many are left,” Aasman points out. “If we’re not careful, we’re just going to burn ourselves out and really be short.”

Aasman assures those in the Rocky Mountain House area that drastic changes won’t happen until the COVID-19 pandemic has passed.

Doctors Letter to Rocky Mountain House community

The rural doctors survey determined at least 44 communities will be affected by the billing changes in some way by the end of July, including Sundre, Stettler and Lac la Biche where doctors have already said they’ll be withdrawing emergency and obstetric services in hospitals.

Aasman notes the survey results show many doctors are now planning to change their practice, retire early, or even leave the province.

“That was probably our biggest concern that came out of it,” he admits. “We were privy early on to the government’s proposals and when we looked at them as individual proposals, we could see a little bit of an idea as to where the government was coming from. But when we actually looked at all of the proposals together and what was going on, it was quite clear early in my mind that this was really going to affect physicians in rural areas.”

Aasman feels the impact for both doctors and patients will be significant.

“We’re the group of doctors that run a medical clinic and provide family medicine practice, we’re the group of doctors that run the hospitals doing both in-patient care, emergency care, labour and deliveries, surgery,” he continues. “We’re the ones that look after the people in our long-term cares and other types of facilities. We started out short and the word is we’re going to get shorter.”

Prior to the funding framework changes being implemented, Aasman says doctors warned the government of the devastating impacts their proposed changes would have on rural health care.

Aasman suggests honest and sincere negotiations are what is needed.

“We had suggested that we look at how the government and Alberta Medical Association could come together and negotiate and look at spreading some of the cuts and the savings that the government was asking for,” he continues. “Physicians are part of the complexity of the healthcare system and how we get paid is part of that and we recognize that.

“If we lose too many physicians in rural (AHS) Central zone, then those patients now have to be absorbed in Red Deer,” he noted.

Physician concerns have also been released by Doctors in Lethbridge and area.