By Curtis Galbraith

Healthcare

Province-wide tour brings Alberta Medical Association president to Grande Prairie

Nov 1, 2023 | 6:45 PM

The new president of the Alberta Medical Association stopped in Grande Prairie Wednesday, November 1 as part of a province-wide tour.

Dr. Paul Parks was here for meetings and to talk with members of the association.

“Given the way COVID was, the way we were all doing virtual, we were really overdue to get out there and start doing some face-to-face meetings.”

“Obviously, first priority is to connect with members but also connecting with government, connecting with leaders that might have any kind of input or connection to healthcare and then, obviously, meeting with all our allied healthcare providers.”

The tour has already made stops in Edmonton, Red Deer and Calgary.

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Dr. Parks says themes that are already emerging include access to family medicine and the viability of clinics, capacity and access to specialists in hospitals and a struggle to find and keep physicians and other healthcare workers.

He thinks covering a big area and managing and transferring patients would also be challenges here.

“Those kinds of challenges that would be unique to a regional centre like Grande Prairie, I think some of the similar themes will emerge.”

“That’s part of why we’re getting out there is I think we have some assumptions about what are some of the big issues but we want to hear it directly.”

Dr. Parks says the issue of temporary emergency department closures in this area because of a lack of physician coverage is “definitely on our radar.”

“The big thing that happens when that happens (is) it not only puts the little, smaller community at risk that has a closed emerg. department where people have to travel to get care, but then of course it would just put added pressures on an already overcrowded Grande Prairie emergency department that already has some of its own challenges with staffing, workforce and capacity in the hospitals.”

Dr. Parks is an emergency department physician in Medicine Hat and says he sees the same thing there every day.

He adds the association will be talking with the provincial government about this problem.

Dr. Parks says the association has been talking with Minister of Health Adrianna LaGrange about what he calls “the family medicine crisis.”

“We absolutely have to change the climate in Alberta now where we’ve lost the Alberta Advantage for recruiting physicians here.”

“Part of that was (the) previous government tearing up the contract and attacking physicians and creating a climate where physicians didn’t want to come to, so that has to be corrected immediately.”

Dr. Parks adds “It looks like we are on the right path there.”

He adds one other issue is enough funding so clinics can stay open. Dr. Parks says these clinics are like small businesses that have to pay for staff and overhead.

“The way that the fee-for-service model right now operates, where the physician can only get paid for seeing the patient right in front of them, it doesn’t work anymore.”

“We have to move to a model of funding where it’s panel-based and allows them to build teams around them. It allows other allied healthcare workers to work in teams with them and see the patients.”

Dr. Parks says this is the idea the association has taken to the government.

He says they are also pushing for what he calls “immediate stabilization funding” that would allow Alberta to keep the physicians it already has.

Dr. Parks says the new funding model would help attract more physicians to Alberta.

The Local Doctors, Local Issues tour has future stops in Lethbridge November 7, Fort McMurray November 9 and Medicine Hat November 23. A virtual session for healthcare professionals in more remote areas is set for November 14.