Sault Area Hospital to open clinic to cope with obstetrician shortage

Sault Area Hospital opens prenatal care clinic Ongoing doctor recruitment challenges have prompted Sault Area Hospital to look for another means of providing prenatal care in the region.

Ongoing doctor recruitment challenges have prompted Sault Area Hospital to look for another means of providing prenatal care in the region.

To that end, the hospital is opening a Prenatal Care Clinic on an interim basis.

Come November, the hospital will be down to just one obstetrician. Karen Guzzo, director of acute services, said the current workload in the obstetrics department would be impossible for one doctor to handle.

That’s why the hospital is reaching out to its health care partners to find ways to continue providing prenatal care in a timely manner.

“We will be utilizing the resources and support from some of our locum physicians coming in and those who are interested in assisting in this,” Guzzo said.

“We are also utilizing the Midwives of Algoma to help us with this clinic.”

Guzzo said as the search for a new doctor continues, the hospital has been receiving a number of calls from concerned mothers-to-be.

“We have a lot of work going on in the background to try to alleviate these issues,” she said.

“There’s a lot of people working on this and we know it’s a need. And we know that it’s scary for anybody who is pregnant and not sure what the next steps will be.”

The clinic is open now, with prenatal care being offered by registered midwives. An on-call obstetrician will provide labour and delivery care, with post-partum services being provided by nurse practitioners and family doctors.