“People are waiting too long. We need to talk more,” said Dr. Allan Garbutt, in a letter to the province’s doctors following news of Dr. Robert Hollinshead’s plans to leave the public system as of July 2014 and provide surgeries for a fee.
Hollinshead’s move will make him the only Alberta surgeon providing medically necessary services not paid for under the Alberta Health Care Insurance Plan.
The surgeon described his decision as borne out of frustration with a system that is failing patients who wait too long for bone and joint operations critical to their well-being.
An “adult discussion” is needed over how to harness the private sector to improve patient care, according to Hollinshead, a former Alberta Medical Association president and past clinical chief of orthopedics in Calgary whose surgical career has spanned 30 years.
Garbutt acknowledged that Hollinshead will get other physicians talking.
“Opting out of insured services will be seen as a positive step by some who believe new choices are needed, while others will view it as a threat to publicly funded health care. I leave it to the many voices that will be raised to debate these matters,” Garbutt wrote.
He said the medical community should focus its attention on working with government to make the health-care system more efficient but the time may come for the province to invest more in care.
“We can measure wait lists and see where we truly stand. If at such a time, however, it appears that more resources are required to care for the population, that is government’s responsibility. Only they can provide the dollars and infrastructure that Albertans need and deserve.”
According to Health Minister Fred Horne, the province is making good progress on tackling surgical waits and has already invested new resources in more procedures.
In the past three years, Alberta has seen a six-per-cent increase in hip replacements and five-per-cent increase in knee operations and is exceeding national targets on waits even as the province’s population swells, Horne said.
The health minister acknowledged more work needs to be done in some key areas, including the amount of time it takes between visiting a family doctor and getting referred to a specialist.
He pointed to a pilot project in Edmonton that’s helped screen such referrals to eliminate unnecessary ones and move urgent cases through faster.
“It’s not a case of necessarily just adding more surgeons, it’s a case of making sure referrals are appropriate,” Horne said.
Horne called Hollinshead’s decision to opt out of the public system a “very rare occurrence” that doesn’t signal any greater shift to private care.
“What I can say is the government is here to deliver a publicly funded, universally accessible health-care system,” said Horne.
“I’m disappointed any time we lose an opportunity to have a really experienced and respected physician work within our health-care system, but it is entirely his decision.”
Hollinshead, 65, has also pointed to the lack of new space for young orthopedic surgeons to find work as a problem. The shoulder specialist said he plans to charge private patients only the same Alberta government rate he received, though the full bill could run up to $10,000 once facility fees, implants and other costs are factored in.
Health-care observers urged the government to take heed of the underlying medical system woes driving Hollinshead’s unusual decision and what it could mean for public care.
“When you look at what opting out means, people will have to pay everything from a cotton ball and a needle to absolutely everything needed for a surgery,” said Sandra Azocar of Friends of Medicare.
“When we’re trying to fix our health-care woes, I think what we should be looking at is more in terms of how we can expand our public health care and improve it.”
NDP MLA Dave Eggen said the Alberta government must now contemplate potential fallout from Hollinshead’s decision. What happens, for example, if a patient has complications and goes to the hospital, he said.
“This is a very radical departure that requires very close examination. He’s certainly free to make this choice but we don’t want people jumping back and forth between the public and private system.”
Original Article
Source: calgaryherald.com/
Author: Jamie Komarnicki,
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