More people are having a hard time finding a family doctor in Alberta and the situation is so dire that a town west of Edmonton has declared a local healthcare crisis.
Doctors and towns are asking the Alberta government for help to keep clinics staffed and reduce paperwork.
The mayor of Hinton says last year, nearly half of the town’s doctors left, mostly due to retirement.
Garth Griffiths, chair of the Hinton Healthcare Foundation, says the town is paying half a million dollars to keep the lights on at the hospital for the next two years.
“Now, there’s only seven or eight doctors and of course, the costs are just so high, if you divide that by the amount of doctors we have, they just can’t afford to do it,” he said.
Griffiths is defending the town’s reputation, saying all it needs from the province is some help.
“Hinton has been well known for its medical records too — we’ve always had good doctors and we have a great hospital,” he said. “We’re getting branded like it’s a horrible place and it isn’t.”
A statement from the Ministry of Health says it is hiring for Hinton, with one doctor on the way, and five more being interviewed.
Dr. Noel Dacunha, president of the Alberta College of Family Physicians, says while the money helps, family doctors are bogged down by paperwork.
“An average family physician probably spends an extra 15 to 20 hours a week just going through some of the extra stuff they do in addition to their day-to-day of looking after patients,” he explained. “It leads many of them to leave family practice because of all the accessory stuff they have to do apart from the important duties of looking after patients.”
The Alberta government says it is giving an additional $57-million dollars to family doctors to help with just that.
Griffiths says the town’s healthcare foundation is hoping to meet with Minister of Health Adriana LaGrange.
“It’s a situation that we have to deal with, that we are short of medical people in Hinton, but I think every town in Alberta is short of people too,” he said.