More local physician departures troubling to Friends of Medicare

By Lethbridge Herald on October 15, 2024.

Herald photo by Al Beeber Chris Gallaway of Friends of Medicare spoke to SACPA last week.

Al Beeber
Lethbridge Herald

Two more doctors are leaving Lethbridge and that’s a concern for the provincial advocacy group Friends of Medicare.

Chris Gallaway executive director of the advocacy group Friends of Medicare, spoke to the Southern Alberta Council on Public Affairs Thursday about whether the provincial healthcare system can be fixed without the UCP government’s proposed restructuring of Alberta Health Services.

Edmonton-based Gallaway told The Herald in an interview before the session at the Lethbridge Senior Citizens Organization that both recruitment and retention of health care professionals is needed to fix the doctor shortage in Alberta.

In Lethbridge that shortage is now worsening after two physicians at the Campbell Clinic South announced they are leaving.

Doctors Jerrett Stephenson and Jessica Van Der Sloot both made the announcement on the Campbell Clinic’s website.

In identical online notices to patients, Stephenson and Van Der Sloot wrote that they are closing their medical practices in Alberta on Dec. 31 but  want to ensure patients their medical concerns are addressed “as best as possible prior” totheir departures.

Gallaway said the provincial government refuses to sign the new physician compensation agreement.

“The doctors have been so clear: ‘sign this or we’ll leave.’ The government broke their promise, they said they would do it by September. They haven’t and now doctors are announcing they’re leaving,” said Gallaway.

“People are going to keep leaving Alberta,” Gallaway said, with the majority of Alberta doctors surveyed by the Alberta Medical Assocation looking at departing the province in the next few years if nothing changes.

“A huge percentage of those are already taking steps to close their clinics and they’re already moving out. You can’t recruit your way out of a retention problem. Every time Lethbridge has got a new doctor in the last couple of years, it hasn’t opened up spaces for new patients because it’s just filling a gap.

“There’s been no one taking new patients in Lethbridge for ages so if you’re someone who doesn’t have a family doctor, there’s been no opportunity to get one,” added Gallaway.

The Chinook Primary Care Network hasn’t taken new patients for three years, he said. Campbell Clinic’s website says it isn’t accepting patients either.

Bringing in new doctors doesn’t matter if the same numbers are leaving, he said.

“We need to retain who we have and we’re not doing that. Retention is the key thing,”  he said, noting it’s important to figure out how to stabilize the work force.

“If all we do is recruit we’re just cycling through” doctors.

Gallaway questions why health professionals would want to establish practices in Alberta.

Health care professional retention is an issue across Canada “but some provinces have workforce plans and retention strategies and recruitment plans and in Alberta we’re not doing that. There’s no central planning or leadership or incentives,” Gallaway noted with some municipalities stepping up with municipal tax dollars to recruit family doctors.

Hinton, for example, is investing $500,000 into its clinic over two years to keep it operating while that community tries to recruit doctors, which Gallaway says is a provincial responsibility.

“We’re seeing that all over the province. . . there should be a provincial retention strategy, there should be a provincial recruitment strategy, we shouldn’t be fighting each other with incentives,” Gallaway added.

“If every community in southern Alberta has an incentive, you’re just fighting each other with money. There’s a lack of coordination, a lack of strategy and people are leaving because they’re done waiting,” he added. 

Friends of Medicare’s statement on the departures from the Campbell Clinic says that Lethbridge has been one of Alberta’s regions most impacted by the provincial doctor shortage.

“Across the province there are hundreds of thousands of Albertans who don’t have access to a family physician, and there have continued to be ongoing, widespread temporary facility closures and service reductions, including in Lethbridge and southern Alberta. A lack of accessible community and primary care creates a ripple effect throughout our health care system, when patients are forced to instead seek care from our already-strained emergency departments. 

“This past summer, Alberta Health Services warned of higher than average wait-times at the ER at the Chinook Regional Hospital in Lethbridge due to a temporary physician reduction….

“A shortage of doctors and other skilled health professionals is the most pressing issue in Alberta’s public health care system right now. There is a desperate need for a health care workforce plan focused on retention and recruitment. But rather than putting their focus where we need it most, on stabilizing health care, the government is continuing to push forward with their chaotic restructuring and privatization plans which are simply creating more confusion and destruction.”