Brooks mayor says operating room vital to city’s obstetrics

By GILLIAN SLADE on November 27, 2020.

gslade@medicinehatnews.com@MHNGillianSlade

The Mayor of Brooks says defunding the city’s maternity clinic is bad enough but fears that are circulating of the operating room being sacrificed are causing even more stress.

Barry Morishita says nobody from Alberta Health Services has talked to the city about such plans, but an Ernst & Young report on AHS earlier this year said closing operating rooms in places where they are not being used at capacity and sending patients to other hospitals instead, would save money.

Losing the local operating room would be a devastating blow to obstetric services in Brooks, which welcomes an average of 300 new babies each year.

If you don’t have an operating room where emergency Caesareans can be performed, physicians will not be willing to take on obstetric care because of the high liability risk, said Morishita.

“We are not asking for an increase in funding,” he said noting that the space in the Brooks health centre, where the maternity clinic has been operating, will be empty and not provide an income to AHS either .

“A box in a hospital (sitting) empty – It’s practically dumb,” said Morishita.

AHS tells the News that there is no truth to the assumption that the operating room will be closed.

“We understand that there is speculation happening within the community of Brooks and want to reassure you that AHS has not been having discussions about eliminating surgeries or removing the operating room from the Brooks Health Centre,” said Linda Iwasiw, interim chief zone officer, AHS south zone.

Morishita says he is not sure of the exact number of surgeries that Brooks Health Centre handles annually but there are ramifications if it is no longer there.

He says the Ernst & Young review was an “accounting exercise” rather than looking at the bigger picture of providing cost-effective health care.

Morishita questions why the Ministry of Health can’t see that by following the review recommendations may look like saving money but will simply create other issues and increased healthcare costs.

At the municipal level there could be significant savings if roads are no longer cleared of snow but there are long term ramifications of leaving the roads in that shape, he explained.

It will become increasingly difficult to keep the doctors the community already has and even more difficult to recruit new ones.

“If you can’t recruit people to your community you can’t have an economic recovery,” said Morishita.