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By Josh Hall (Twitter: @Vancan19)

nowhere to go

Red Deer dealing with severe lack of doctors accepting new patients

Feb 15, 2023 | 6:15 AM

The alarm is being sounded after it recently became apparent that not a single one of the 93 doctors connected to Red Deer’s Primary Care Network (PCN) is currently accepting new patients.

On the PCN’s Find a Doctor page, every doctor is listed as ‘Not accepting new patients.’

The website of the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Alberta (CPSA) has a similar function; it shows 84 doctors in Red Deer, four of whom are listed as accepting new patients with a referral. The website notes though this is based on communication from each doctor and may be outdated.

One local physician, Dr. Maureen McCall, is speaking up.

McCall believes the situation will worsen as some senior doctors are said to be on the verge of retirement. McCall spent 30 years in Red Deer, she says, before contemplating retirement from her practice to focus on palliative care.

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“I spent five years using every tool available to find a young doctor to take over my 2000+ patients including networking at medical conferences, advertising locally and nationally, and acting as a mentor to many residents and students. I spent many hours begging my already overwhelmed colleagues to take on some of my more complex patients,” she says.

“It was devastating to leave so many patients with the message, ‘Goodbye and good luck finding a new doctor.’ I agree we need to be training more doctors in Alberta to stay in Alberta. We need to find incentives that will encourage young doctors [to stay], especially those willing to provide maternity care and deliver babies, provide inpatient hospital care, continue to care for their patients in hospital and long-term care facilities and be there for their patients till the end of life at home and hospice.”

McCall says adversarial positions taken by recent governments against nurses, doctors and other healthcare workers haven’t helped recruit workers into challenging roles.

NDP election candidate for Red Deer-North, Jaelene Tweedle, says the province’s third-largest city is being ignored.

“We have watched as ambulances pile up 14-deep in loading bays, patients having to be airlifted by helicopter because we cannot treat them in the city, climbing wait times, constant delays and drama around the Red Deer Regional Hospital, and now this,” says Tweedle.

“Every day I talk to residents in Red Deer who are worried about accessing care, who are worried about what their family should do in an emergency, or worried about finding care for their ageing parents. Just a few weeks ago I spoke with a nurse that moved here from Calgary, and she was shocked to see the level of burnout among frontline healthcare staff.”

Tweedle says unless you live in Red Deer, it’s hard to grasp how bad it really is.

Red Deer-North MLA Adriana LaGrange maintains that Alberta has the best front line health care workers in the world

“Alberta’s government is working to ensure that Albertans have access to the care they need, when and where they need it,” says LaGrange. “I am aware of the ongoing situation regarding physician retention and recruitment across central Alberta, and I can assure you that Alberta’s government is actively working to increase access to physicians in Red Deer. I will continue to strongly advocate for more access to physicians, anesthesiologists, nurses, and front line staff in Red Deer and central Alberta.”

Also in response to concerns, Alberta Health Press Secretary Scott Johnston provided the following statement: “Our workforce planning process does include identifying physician need for communities across the Central Zone. Alberta had a net gain of 254 physicians in 2022. Central Zone had the largest percentage increase of 4.5 per cent – a gain of 34,” he says.

“According to the Physician Resources Report for the final three months of 2022, the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Alberta (CPSA) reports Red Deer increased by 14 doctors over that period, a 4.6 per cent increase. Granted not all of them would be family physicians. Comparing year over year statistics, it is an increase of 23 physicians, for an increase of 7.7 per cent.”

Adds Johnston: “Recruitment across Central Zone is continually ongoing for physicians to work in our facilities, and for some who also practice in family clinics. In Red Deer, AHS has recruited four physicians in the last year who work for AHS as well as practice family medicine. There are another two physicians who will start in the area in the next couple of months. When the AHS recruitment team learned of family physician needs late last year, they worked to establish an additional 13 physician postings.”

Alberta Health Services was included in our request to comment, but deferred to Alberta Health.