The emergency room at Mission Memorial Hospital was forced into “service adaptations” for the third time in as many weeks due to a physician shortage last Friday night.
In total, the hospital has redirected care for 37 hours over the past month.
With no doctor available, Fraser Health implemented “service adaptations” at Mission Hospital for the first time on July 22, again on Aug. 2 and most recently on Aug. 9.
Emergency-trained nurses supported walk-in patients needing basic first aid during those periods while assisting with the redirection of care, and transferring patients with urgent needs to neighbouring hospitals.
“We want to assure the community that we are addressing physician staffing challenges over the summer. Sustainment plans are being implemented to prevent any further service adaptations and ensure continuous, safe and timely care for Mission residents and the surrounding area,” Mission Memorial Hospital site director Dr. Paul Theron said in a statement.
One physician is needed for the Mission Memorial Hospital emergency room to function on a given shift, Fraser Health says.
While announcing a new CT scanner for Mission Hospital on Wednesday (Aug. 14), health minister Adrian Dix said it’s been a challenging time for the hospital and staff have been working in difficult conditions since the emergency room flood.
“We've been down a couple of days. We don't want to be down any day – any day. And our doctors and our health care workers and our nurses are doing absolutely everything we can as … we're throwing everything at that issue because we need to. We know this hospital is going to be one of the most important hospitals in Fraser Health five years from now, 10 years from now, 15 years from now,” Dix said.
The health minister said the impact of a diversion on the community is known.
“We're throwing everything at it, and we still got to keep going, because personally, I don't think one diversion is acceptable,” Dix said.
Dix says the situation is not desirable and “we’re fighting hard for staffing”. He said it’s the ministry’s commitment to work in the short term but also the medium term to enhance staff and improve the capacity of the hospital.
“I believe in this place, believe in this hospital and we're doing everything we can working with our doctors and nurses to deal with not just the challenges of this summer, dealing with vacation, dealing with other things, but on a permanent basis, because this is going to be a centre of healthcare in the Fraser Valley region and the Fraser Health region. And part of addressing that is addressing the immediate but the key challenge is recruiting permanent, long-term staff, and that's what we're doing as well,” Dix said.
Mission All Together For Healthcare Society (MATH) co-chair Andrew Edelson said the organization expected the emergency room would be in trouble. A potential summer shutdown for the department was even thought possible.
“By good fortune, [it] got supported by Fraser Health and the ministry in keeping the extra payments available for the work done, which actually has saved the emergency and from MATH’s perspective, we have closed many fewer times than expected or anticipated,” Edelson said.
According to Fraser Health, “significant” national and international recruitment efforts continue.
Fraser Health offers a range of rates between $3,060 and $4,125 to attract emergency physicians for coverage of critical-to-fill shifts. The health authority has also recently expanded hours at urgent and primary care centres in Abbotsford and Mission on certain days as a way to support communities.
Meanwhile, repairs continue on Mission Memorial Hospital's emergency department after a flood in January. Edelson says MATH appreciates the support from Fraser Health and the province.
“We appreciate the fact the emergency room is going to turn into something better. We appreciate the CT scanner. We appreciate the fact that they took the opportunity to improve the whole imaging department with the CT scanner. We've done overall pretty well, I think … that doesn't mean there's not a lot more to do. From our perspective, part of that is supporting new physicians. Part of that is recruiting more international medical graduates,” Edelson said.
Speaking from the perspective of a retired family physician, former Mission Site Medical Director and not as MATH co-chair, Edelson said the diversions are part of the chaos of the current healthcare system.
“This is happening all over. Everybody's short and it's a systemic problem,” he said. “Mission, because it's been such a good community, has been very fortunate to avoid it up until now. I mean, the writing's been on the wall.”
Fraser Health and the health ministry are trying to fix it but have been unable to so far, Edelson says.
“It's going to take more than money. They're being generous with the amount they're offering physicians to parachute in to do the work. But they've got offers everywhere. They don't have to come out to Mission – they can stay in Vancouver or Port Coquitlam or wherever. All the small communities, I think, need to use their [general practitioner] resources better,”
Edelson, a former general practitioner, says “GPs” aren’t as well trained as fully qualified emergency doctors but the numbers are greater.
“I think if the system found a way to support GPs to use all of their skills, I think you'd have less of a crisis,” he said.
