In the minds of many, being a boomtown translates into a run on gold faucets and lineups at luxury car dealerships. Nothing could further from the truth, as oilsands capital Fort McMurray is discovering as it attempts to cope with explosive growth, an exorbitantly expensive rental market and acute labour shortages.
Nowhere is the strain more heavily felt than on the health front, which now annually turns over 40% of hospital and public health staff and now has a 20% vacancy rate for posted positions.
Officially, 30% of the population has no family doctor, roughly double the national average. Unofficially, that excludes the ever-present construction workforce, so the true rate probably approaches 44%. Only 2 of 14 family physicians serving 82 000 people in the 64 000 square kilometre surrounding area still accept patients.
The ratio of 0.17 family physicians per 1000 population is one-sixth that of Edmonton, 435 kilometres to the south.
The local emergency room, the third busiest in the province, can't functionally accommodate more than 1 physician at a time. A record 156 patients were recently seen during a 12-hour shift.
In January, family physicians gave notice that they would no longer stretch themselves to cover the “Doc of the Day” schedule for hospitalized patients without family doctors, so the government implemented a $1200 daily fee-for-service (plus fee) temporary rotation of out-of-town doctors.
Patients, though, have been left with nowhere to go when discharged, and continuity of care has been compromised. Local family doctors interested in providing some coverage found themselves unilaterally excluded from the plan, fueling a sense of alienation. Still, in response, the government has appointed a transition team, so there is hope of restitution and restoration.
Footnotes
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CMAJ is pleased to launch a new section “Canadian dispatches from medical fronts,” in which physicians and other health care providers can provide eyewitness glimpses of the medical front, whether defined by location or intervention. Without intending to restrict options, the front can be defined as any unique confluence of time and event, whether in developing countries, war zones, inner-city clinics, in the North, or with a novel surgical technique or intervention. The frequency of the section will be conditional on submissions, which must run to a maximum 350 words or be subject to our ruthless editorial pencils. Forward submissions to: Wayne.Kondro{at}cma.ca