Dear Members,
Acute Care Concerns
In December we presented government with our Acute Care Stabilization Proposal, a comprehensive framework that will align payment models and incentives and help to stabilize acute care so that Alberta can once again be competitive in terms of physician retention and recruitment.
I encourage you to read the AMA’s proposal (member login required). Note that the proposal has been updated to reflect our changing health care environment but is still consistent with the December 4, 2023 version that was presented to government. While it will not solve all the problems plaguing acute care, this is the only solution being provided to government that cuts across the system and will make a positive difference for physicians and patient care.
Government has not yet responded to this thoughtful, solution-focused framework. Meanwhile, we see more evidence every day of the collapse that we have been warning about for years. For example:
- Cancer Care: We have a devastating shortage of oncologists. Patients wait eight to nine weeks beyond government’s four-week benchmark. These delays make patients sicker and some are dying before ever being seen by an oncologist. Over the past four years, 22 of 25 newly trained oncology graduates in Alberta left the province. From 2017-22, there was a 10% increase in unique cancer patients, a 25% increase in cancer patient visits – and just a 1% increase in the number of oncologists. We are nowhere near keeping up. We need 35 new oncologists just to meet immediate needs. Only government can create the spaces so these specialists can be recruited to care for Albertans.
- General Surgery: We are alarmed at the increasing number of patients that are being diverted to other hospitals for emergency surgery. Patients are already waiting too long to be seen in an emergency room, and there’s an increasing chance that if they require urgent surgery they will need to be transferred to another hospital. This is not safe. The underlying problem is the lack of Tier 1 support staff teams who make surgical care possible: in-patient family physicians, nurses, nurse practitioners, clinical assistants, resident physicians, etc.
Read more about Acute Care Concerns - Cancer Care, General Surgery.
We will be telling more stories about the acute care crisis. This week government issued a news release about data from the College of Physicians & Surgeons of Alberta (CPSA) that shows some improvement, with a net increase of 332 physicians in the last year. The trouble is that we are starting from a deficit position. From 2019 to 2023, 2,471 physicians exited practice in Alberta, and we’ve seen unprecedented vacancies in family medicine residency spots and other specialties. All this while our population continues to grow at a rapid rate – Alberta’s population exploded by 200,000 from April 2023 to 2024. That’s like adding the population of Red Deer twice to the province, and we expect to add nearly 2 million in the next 20 years.
There are solutions and there is no time to lose. I do believe government sees the problems and they want to fix things. But I am worried that they don’t see the urgency. Physicians see it. The health care teams we work with see it. So do our patients. Does government?
Regards,
Paul Parks
President, Alberta Medical Association