An expert says that the most immediate solutions are more important than a new school
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Critical shortages across all branches of the health care sector have critics wondering when construction will begin on the promised new medical school at Simon Fraser University.
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But an emergency room doctor called for more immediate action, saying those without a family doctor can’t afford to wait out the years it will take to train a new generation of doctors.
BC Liberals are calling on the NDP government to make good on its “broken promise” to create a second medical school in BC, at Simon Fraser University, and increase the number of vacancies at the University of British Columbia’s medical school from 288 to 400.
“This is a government that has promised a second medical school at SFU Surrey and we have had no indication that they intend to follow through on it,” said Shirley Bond, health critic for BC Liberal.
Prime Minister John Horgan promised during the 2020 election campaign that, if re-elected, the New Democrats would fund a new medical school at SFU, but the two budgets since the election have not included funding for construction.
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Official opposition also wants the province to make it easier for internationally trained doctors to practice here and increase the residencies available for international medical graduates from 56 to 150 a year.
In April, the province announced a plan to speed up the accreditation of internationally trained nurses to address staffing shortages, but no such plan was announced for doctors who studied abroad.
Health Minister Adrian Dix said Tuesday that he has been calling for a new medical school since 2011, when he was leader of the opposition, an idea that was not supported by BC’s Liberal rulers.
SFU is developing a business case for the new medical school, Dix said, so there is no firm date on when it will start.
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“This is something that is important and significant over time, but not as related to the current crisis,” Dix said, noting that it takes years to build a medical school and produce graduate doctors.
“We are seeing challenges, particularly in family medicine but in all of medicine, now. We’re going to see more challenges 10 years from now,” Dix said, given the population of people over the age of 75 set to double in the next decade.
Staffing shortages have prompted the emergency department at Vancouver’s UBC Hospital to reduce its hours. Starting Tuesday, the emergency department will admit patients from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. instead of 10 p.m., Vancouver Coastal Health announced Monday.
The health authority said this will allow emergency physician coverage at all acute care sites in Vancouver while also ensuring staff and doctors aren’t constantly working overtime, which is causing burnout.
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People who need emergency care after 8:00 pm can go to Vancouver General Hospital, St. Paul’s Hospital or, for children and youth, BC Children’s Hospital.
“Increasing patient arrival volumes, especially late in the day, has meant that UBC Hospital ED staff and medical staff routinely work well beyond their scheduled shifts into the early morning hours to provide care to patients. who arrive at the hospital. late afternoon,” Dr. Ladan Sadrehashemi, VCH senior medical director for acute care in Vancouver, said in a statement.
“The uncertainty of not knowing the end time of the last shift is leading to burnout and loss of medical and other personnel…and it is not sustainable.”
Dr. Michael Curry, an emergency room physician at Delta Hospital and an assistant clinical professor at the University of British Columbia, said it’s unfortunate that UBC Hospital is reducing hours as any reduction in emergency room capacity puts patients at risk.
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“I can think of a personal case where someone suffered a life-threatening injury within a couple of 100 meters of UBC Hospital,” he said. “It is very possible that they would have died if they had had to be transported to Vancouver General Hospital.”
The crisis in primary care, with a million British Columbians without a family doctor, is putting pressure on understaffed emergency rooms that are seeing more patients who haven’t had adequate preventive care, Curry said.
For example, he said, emergency room doctors more often see patients with diagnoses, people who come to renew their prescription or patients who come with chronic problems of years.
“The only entry into the health care system for a growing number of British Columbians is through the emergency department,” he said, adding to patient frustration and staff burnout.
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Vancouver Coastal Health is reviewing an incident from July in which a woman died after spending two days on a stretcher in a crowded and understaffed North Vancouver hospital waiting room.
While he supports more training positions to educate the next generation of doctors, Curry said that even if the new medical school at SFU were to open tomorrow, it would be six to 12 years before those doctors are practicing.
That shows a “lack of foresight” in propping up a “health system that has been running on smoke for years,” he said.
The lack of staff has caused some small town emergency rooms, such as Ashcroft, Clearwater, Port McNeill, Port Hardy, to close temporarily. That creates a backlog for paramedics who must transport a patient to the next closest hospital, which, in the interior and north, is sometimes more than an hour away.
With roughly a quarter of the 2,400 paramedic positions vacant, there are not enough paramedics to staff standby ambulances in small communities.
That was the case Sunday in Ashcroft when a man in his 80s went into cardiac arrest. The man was 200 meters from the ambulance station, but he had to wait 28 minutes for paramedics to arrive.
“When you call 911 in British Columbia, you have to expect an ambulance to answer,” Bond said. “While it is absolutely devastating for Ashcroft, we are hearing similar stories of a health care system in crisis throughout our province.”
