New doctor deal but one step to rebuilding trust, local physician says

By KENDALL KING on October 1, 2022.

kking@medicinehatnews.com

A new contract has been ratified between the province and physicians, and while local doctor Paul Parks says it’s a step in the right direction, there is more to be done to fix Alberta’s health-care system and rebuild trust between the two parties.

With a 70.2 per cent favourable vote, the new agreement was signed Thursday; ending a two-and-a-half-year period in which Alberta’s physicians were without contract after former health minister Tyler Shandro ripped up the previous contract in February 2020.

The new contract, retroactively in effect from April 1 to March 31, 2026, promises health-care system investments in the hundreds of millions (an estimated $750 million total) with emphasis on physician recruitment and retention, especially in rural areas.

“It’s definitely positive that we finally have a contract and a working relationship again,” Parks said. “But on the other hand, it’s very clear that there’s not enough in the contract to transform and bolster primary care and to fix capacity and the acute care (and) primary care systems. That’s going to be a massive endeavour that isn’t covered or completed in this contract.”

Parks, who is also the Alberta Medical Association’s head of the section of emergency medicine, has been a key voice in the province’s medical field throughout the pandemic; continually sounding the alarm on a system he describes as being “almost on the brink of collapse” even now.

While Parks doesn’t wish to undermine efforts that went into the new contract, he does feel many of its terms are tone deaf to the state of the health-care system and what resources are needed to get it back up to par, never mind thriving.

“The best way to look at this contract is merely just one initial step towards trying to invest in the system,” he said. “It’s basically returned to the old contract and added a couple of things that establishes a relationship.”

Parks is especially concerned the new contract will hinder its goal of physician recruitment and retention – something he feels the province desperately needs.

Over the past two years, Alberta has experienced an exodus of physicians, with the province’s College and Physicians and Surgeons reporting 229 left between 2020 (87) and 2021 (140).

Parks is especially concerned about the number of primary care physicians, as more Albertans speak on the struggle of trying to find a family doctor.

“The government hasn’t really invested and increased funding to primary care for years,” said Parks. “And then over the pandemic they made a bunch of unilateral changes that made it even harder to be a primary care, full-practice general practitioner, especially in communities our size and smaller.”

Coming off two years of hostility and with the health-care system still in dire straights, Parks says he and many other physicians are not yet able to breathe a sigh of relief, but instead are exercising cautious optimism.

“You have to value the human resources you have, you have to respect them and you have to actually listen to their input,” said Parks. “So, the fact that (the health) minister has signalled he is willing to do that is a good sign. But the government has to put their money where their mouth is in the sense of working with us and repairing relationships.”

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