Province-wide day of action planned for May 27
Whistler patients can expect closed doctor's offices and cancelled surgeries in coming weeks as talks between the government and the British Columbia Medical Association continue to flounder.
"There's going to be escalating job action and it's going to become very difficult," predicts Dr. Adam Kendall of the Creekside Medical Clinic.
"It's an inconvenience because the already long waiting lists are just going to increase more."
The Creekside Medical Clinical was closed on Wednesday as part of the BCMA job action.
This was the second time the clinic has been closed in recent weeks.
"I have to support my representation, the British Columbia Medical Association," said Kendall of the association that represents most of the province's 7,800 doctors.
"It's an inconvenience definitely but what we need to do is actually put pressure on the government instead of the doctors because we're trying to stand up for honesty in negotiations," he said.
The Town Plaza Medical Clinic was open for patients on Wednesday only because the notice to continue job action came too late on Tuesday night to give them enough time to inform their patients of a closure.
But the doctors there fully support the actions of the BCMA.
By next week, if the conflict is not resolved, B.C. doctors will not be seeing patients on Monday, May 27 in a province-wide action day as directed by the BCMA.
"We will be open for business except as directed by the BCMA and there will be notice of days of closure," said Dr. Janice Carr at the Town Plaza Medical Clinic.
The job action is not just confined to walk in clinics or doctors’ office shutdowns. It has also been extended to hospital surgeries.
Doctors have promised that emergency care will not be compromised and all life or limb situations will be dealt with as business as usual.
Since doctors began cutting back on operations more than 1,400 elective operations have been cancelled province-wide.
On Wednesday all elective surgeries were cancelled, including nine at Richmond, 19 at Lions Gate, seven at Powell River and eight in Squamish.
Physicians at the Squamish General Hospital have also indicated they are withdrawing Doctor of the Day on-call services and are not accepting new "orphaned" patients from other communities as inpatients.
Orphaned patients are those coming to the hospital without a local physician’s referral.
The Squamish doctors will be accepting any corridor patients however, and they will not be turning away any emergency cases.
Whistler's chief of staff, Dr. Bruce Mohr, has not endorsed this particular form of the job action.
In a memo to all physicians in Whistler and Pemberton dated May 10, Mohr wrote:
"The only Emergency Department we have in the Sea to Sky Corridor is located in Squamish and our respective D & T Centres in Whistler and Pemberton depend on it.
"There will be patients who require Emergency Department observation and/or admission to hospital regardless of whether their condition is considered life or limb threatening."
Mohr wrote he was grateful the physicians in Squamish gave them notice of their job action but he also said that any job action should not adversely impact the emergency care of patients in the corridor.
The corridor doctors have come to an understanding.
"Squamish and Whistler doctors have been in touch and it is not an issue at this time," said operating administrator Kathryn Kilpatrick on Wednesday.
On Monday, when the Whistler walk-in clinic and doctors’ offices are closed, the Whistler Health Care Centre will be open for emergency business.
"Certainly people who have a cold or a sniffle should not be going to emergency," said Carr.
"Routine things should not be done on these days of closure."
So far there has not been a marked increase in emergency room visits, according to Clay Adams, communications director Vancouver Coastal Health Authority.
"What we're finding is that the first few days of such closures patients don't tend to go to the emergency room," he said.
Since the job action began, doctors have come under harsh criticism from the government.
"The decision by the BCMA executive to begin job action is utterly unnecessary, utterly irresponsible and obviously unprofessional," said Colin Hansen, minister of Health Services.
"We hope that most doctors will recognize that, and that they'll call on the BCMA executive to put patients first, stop job action and return to the negotiation table."
But Kendall says the government is just not "playing fair" at the bargaining table.
Last weekend's contract negotiations between doctors and the province, the third attempt to reach consensus, failed and Dr. Heidi Oetter, president of the BCMA, accused the government of bargaining in bad faith.
She attributes the breakdown in part to two last minute demands by the government: asking for another year to a proposed three-year agreement and wanting to include doctors under provincial legislation covering essential services.
As negotiations continue to hit a stalemate, the BCMA is encouraging more job action and there may be urgent surgery cancellation in the coming days.
This is different from elective surgery in that it must be performed within a period of about two weeks or the patients' life may be threatened.
According to Adams of the VCHA, there are two moods among staff right now – frustration and confusion.
"Frustration because of the ongoing job action and the fact that there does not appear to be an end in sight. Frustration at the reasons for it – there are lots of different reasons for it none of which seem to be a truly central key issue.
"And I say confusion in the sense of the lack of information. The BCMA has been very haphazard in the information it has been sending."
