President's Letter
Dear Members,
Last week I met with Minister of Health Adriana LaGrange to discuss the ongoing crisis in family medicine and the Longitudinal Family Practice proposal the Alberta Medical Association has submitted to address it. I was joined by the presidents of the Section of Family Medicine and Section of Rural Medicine. These leaders have done a lot of heavy lifting behind our proposal to make family medicine stable and sustainable.
As you know, the minister has acknowledged that the family medicine crisis is real. The question for government is how, and how quickly, they will respond with meaningful, physician-led reform.
When we met, I found the minister well-informed about our proposal. She clearly shares our solutions-oriented approach. I believe she understands that we are no longer competitive in Canada, and that we are losing doctors while also failing to effectively recruit new ones. I think she understands that without meaningful measures to retain the doctors we have in the province, reforms to family medicine will become more and more difficult to achieve. There was also recognition that even in the time since the Modernizing Alberta’s Primary Health Care System (MAPS) process was undertaken, a shortage of doctors and lack of financial viability have continued to erode family medicine.
When she spoke at the Representative Forum, Minister LaGrange said that the release of MAPS would be accompanied by “short, medium and long-term initiatives.” For family physicians, the short-term initiatives must include stabilization funding that will help to retain the physicians we have and secure our family and rural medicine practices. A stabilized sector can then be engaged in medium and long-term reforms that include a fair and more effective funding model that supports team-based care. We want a system that provides a medical home for every patient who wants one, in an integrated health neighborhood where all specialties work together as seamlessly as possible. We have outlined a framework to start this work in our LFP proposal, and we must preserve and build on the elements of primary care that are working well right now in Alberta.
Beyond stabilization, our LFP proposal includes solutions to address various issues, such as payment for time – indirect, direct and add on, as well as complexity payments to recognize how chronic diseases are managed at different levels, affected by the mental health and age of the patient.
Your family medicine leaders continue to represent you very well as we push for reform toward comprehensive, longitudinal family practice and fair compensation. When I met with them yesterday, they were clear in their support for immediate stabilization and eager to participate in ongoing discussions with government. They will continue their advocacy, and, on their behalf, I am appealing to all members to continue to raise awareness with elected officials: family medicine is in crisis and requires immediate stabilization and reform.
I encourage you to share this President’s Letter with your network and your local elected officials. There is a link at the bottom if you would like to send the President’s Letter directly to your MLA. Ask them to read and consider it and, if you can, tell them about the circumstances you are dealing with in your own practice. Too many Albertans do not have access to a family physician. Doctors are leaving Alberta. This must change.
The minister’s mandate letter from Alberta’s premier is clear: Support primary care as the foundation of our health care system by assessing alternative models of care and leveraging all health care professions.
After a year of consultation and many months of waiting, we are beyond ready for action.
If you would like to forward this President’s Letter to your MLA, please click the appropriate link below:
Practicing physician: www.patientsfirst.ca/md-mla-program
Resident physician: www.patientsfirst.ca/md-mla-program-residents
Medical student: www.patientsfirst.ca/md-mla-program-medical-students
Please lend your support. I will write again soon to keep you updated. You can reach me anytime at president@albertadoctors.org. You can also comment on this letter on the AMA website.
Regards,
Paul Parks
President, Alberta Medical Association