‘Pleading for the government to do its job’: AMA on emergency department issues

The Alberta Medical Association's Dr. Paul Parks discusses the state of the province's emergency departments and hospitals.

Some Alberta doctors have said long wait times and crowded emergency rooms are causing big problems in hospitals, while others want the province to declare a state of emergency to address issues in the health-care system. The Alberta Medical Association’s Dr. Paul Parks joined CTV Your Morning Edmonton’s Kent Morrison to discuss the state of the province’s emergency departments and hospitals.

This transcript has been edited for length and clarity.

Kent Morrison: I first want to ask you about the chief medical officer of health who was speaking to reporters on Tuesday. She put a lot of the blame on the flu for the long wait times in crammed hospitals. What do you think about that?

Dr. Paul Parks: First off, I’ll say it’s awesome to have an expert in public health out there speaking to the public but I can’t comment exactly on what she said. There’s no question about it, talking to my colleagues across the province, influenza was a 1000-pound weight that was already dropped on the broken camel’s back. The system was in a red line all year and never got to a state where we were ready for these seasonal volumes that we knew were coming. The government mostly dismantling public health and making vaccines and preventative health care very difficult, did not help. But I just have to stress to everybody out there, our system was in major trouble before influenza, and influenza just made it infinitely worse.

Kent: You want the province to declare a state of emergency. What does that mean and how would that help you address things in the health-care system?

Parks: Just to be very clear, we’re in a state of emergency. Whether you call it a state of crisis, a disaster or a state of emergency, we’re functioning in that every day in our major emergency departments. The biggest thing, by a mile, is it’s been crickets. It’s been nothing since this came out last week, not a word. The government put some PR people out there to try to downplay it, but first off, just acknowledge it. It really is very difficult to provide safe and timely care in our major emergency departments. As soon as you acknowledge there’s a problem then you can say, ‘OK, here’s the leader. Here’s the person running the entire health-care system across the province, so that we can load level and use tools that we have at our disposal. And here, we’re going to empower them.’ We hear the frontline health-care workers. Hundreds have signed an op-ed saying we need help. It’s not just me saying it and we’re pleading for action. That’s what we’re saying. We’re in a state of crisis, disaster, emergency and we’re pleading for the government to do its job now.

Kent: Are there tools that you’re aware of that the province can use that they aren’t using right now, or what exactly do you want the government to do?

Parks: 100 per cent. The biggest thing right now is the government spent the last two to three years just blowing up our health-care system. Disintegrating it, making four silos, making four ministers of health and they don’t even know which minister of health should respond right now. In the past, we had tools like redistribution and moving. If sick patients were in the north and the Edmonton zone was overwhelmed, they bypassed the Edmonton zone and maybe went down to the south or Calgary.

There was repatriation of patients out to community hospitals, postponing some scheduled surgeries. No one wants scheduled surgeries bumped or postponed but right now, the government is silent. By doing nothing and not doing a coordinated manner means that they’re actively choosing to allow Albertans to suffer and some to die in our waiting rooms and in our hospitals because they’re choosing not to give us some breathing room in our hospitals by doing some of these big provincial measures that we know we’ve used in the past.

In the past, AHS (Alberta Health Services) used to have a coordinated provincial response. It was clearly in charge of it, was supposed to do it and the government took that away. That’s OK, but who did they put in charge of it? Who is actually going to lead us out of this crisis provincially? There’s no one doctor or team that can do it on their own.

Kent: We appreciate your insight on what’s going on inside hospitals. The Government of Alberta is scheduled to speak with reporters about this situation tomorrow.

Parks: We definitely need everyone to be aware of this and ask the government to do their job and to act. They need to show some leadership.