previously warned<\/a> that disruptions to patient care are likely when stipend contracts for surgical hospitalists expire April 1. Surgical hospitalists manage pre- and post-operative care, allowing surgeons \u2014 who often work at multiple hospitals \u2014 to focus on surgical duties.<\/p>\nSurgical hospitalists warned the province in February that \u201cin the absence of a contract or reasonable alternative, the majority of surgical hospitalists do not intend \u2014 and under the terms of their existing agreements are not permitted \u2014 to continue working.\u201d<\/p>\n
But the ACA statement said that as of March 31, \u201c11 of the over 280 surgical and primary care hospitalists currently receiving stipends have submitted the formal resignation documentation required under Medical Staff Bylaws to end their orthopedic support privileges in Edmonton.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Edmonton zone\u2019s orthopedic leaders\u2019 letter, written by division head Angela Scharfenberger, notes that physicians\u2019 \u201cfirst and foremost obligation is to ensure patient care and safety,\u201d and that continuing to provide services with insufficient resources or staffing may compromise patient safety.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn such circumstances, physicians are expected to use their professional judgment to determine how best to manage their practice,\u201d she writes. \u201cThis may include limiting services, modifying scope or adjusting practice capacity.\u201d<\/p>\n
Scharfenberger had not responded to a request for comment as of publication. Covenant Health referred questions to ACA.<\/p>\n
The letter says minimal acute care coverage has been arranged at the University of Alberta Hospital and Royal Alexandra Hospital, relying on surgical residents and associate physicians. Inpatient trauma services will be directed to those facilities, according to Scharfenberger\u2019s letter.<\/p>\n
In a statement provided to CBC News on Tuesday, a spokesperson for the Ministry of Hospital and Surgical Health Services said \u201ca multidisciplinary group continues to meet regularly\u201d to try and solve the impasse with hospitalists.<\/p>\n
\u201cAppropriate care remains in place, including through the use of qualified health-care professionals such as associate physicians, physician assistants and nurse practitioners,\u201d the statement reads.<\/p>\n
\u201cClear contingency plans are in place to maintain patient safety and service continuity.\u201d<\/p>\n
In the legislature on Tuesday, Opposition NDP hospital and surgical facilities critic Sarah Hoffman questioned Jones about the situation.<\/p>\n
\u201cTomorrow, there\u2019s going to be chaos,\u201d said Hoffman. \u201cWhy won\u2019t the minister admit it, and why won\u2019t he do something to stop it?\u201d<\/p>\n
Jones replied that hospitalists have been offered reasonable alternative compensation options, and \u201cwe expect the vast majority\u201d to accept them.<\/p>\n
Scharfenberger\u2019s letter points to the Misericordia Community Hospital in particular, noting that the division has not received any direction regarding \u201cpredictable and comprehensive acute care coverage\u201d past March 31.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI’m a little stressed,\u201d said Dr. Paulose Paul, an orthopedic surgeon and former zone division lead who works at the Misericordia.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou’d like to go into work having some measure of predictability in terms of what your day is going to hold. I know that\u2019s not always the case in medicine, but … right now, even that measure of predictability doesn’t seem to be there.\u201d<\/p>\n
Paul said he received the letter and confirmed its authenticity to CBC News.<\/p>\n
Even less than 24 hours before the April 1 deadline, he said there wasn\u2019t much clarity on how things will unfold.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019ll be a reduced level of services,\u201d Paul said. \u201cI will take care of the patient in front of me to the best of my ability, but we may see more transfers, inter-hospital transfers across the zone.<\/p>\n
\u201c[But] I really don’t have an answer for you in terms of what tomorrow’s going to look like.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Listen to this article Estimated 4 minutes The audio version of this article is generated by AI-based technology.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":574360,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[194294],"tags":[49,48,23752],"class_list":{"0":"post-574359","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-edmonton","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-edmonton"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/574359","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=574359"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/574359\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/574360"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=574359"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=574359"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=574359"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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