Making the best of a bad situation

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 04/01/2025 (353 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The front page of yesterday’s Sun presented a jarring contradiction that provided visual evidence of the fragile state of our health-care system here in western Manitoba.

On the top half of the page was a colour photo of the Janzen family — mother Jessica, father Thomas, son Rowan and newborn daughter Mckenna, who was born at the Brandon Regional Health Centre 4:51 a.m. on New Year’s Day.

Below that photograph was a report with the headline “Maternity-care disruption at Brandon hospital averted.” It revealed that a disruption in maternity services at the Brandon Regional Health Centre was averted on Wednesday — the same day Mckenna Janzen was born at the facility — after two obstetricians from Winnipeg and two family physicians from rural Manitoba agreed to work during previously unfilled shifts in the hospital’s maternity department.

On Wednesday, Prairie Mountain Health issued a media alert, warning that a “temporary disruption” was expected to occur at the hospital from 8 a.m. on Thursday until 8 a.m. yesterday, due to the “unexpected absence” of a medical provider. Expectant mothers and anyone seeking maternity services during that 24-hour period were advised to access care at another health-care centre or facility during that time.

The closure would have forced women requiring obstetrical care to travel long distances on winter highways to receive care, in circumstances when time is often of the essence. It is no exaggeration to say that the lives of expectant mothers and their babies could have been exposed to heightened risk.

The approaching crisis was averted, however. On Wednesday evening, the health region issued another media alert, advising that medical coverage had been secured. It ensured there would be no interruption in the provision of maternity services at the Brandon hospital.

One of the doctors who stepped up to work in the maternity ward is the incoming Doctors Manitoba president, Dr. Nichelle Desilets, who practises family medicine in Neepawa. She told the Sun on Thursday that “I completely understand the stress that the public, particularly the younger families in Brandon and southwestern Manitoba have expressed.”

She added that some maternity nurses had told her they had never seen a closure of maternity services for that reason in their careers, but she then ominously warned that “It could happen again.”

Dr. Desilets is not exaggerating the seriousness of the situation, nor the likelihood that it could be repeated. The fact is that Manitoba — and Prairie Mountain Health in particular — has suffered from a shortage of doctors, nurses and other health-care professionals for more than a decade, and the situation may worsen before it improves.

The Doctors Manitoba website indicates that the province currently has a shortage of 346 doctors. With just 219 physicians per 100,000 residents, we rank second-last in the nation in terms of physicians per capita. To make matters even worse, a large percentage of doctors are planning to retire in the next few years.

The ongoing doctor shortage has caused the frequent closure of emergency departments throughout the region over the past several years, and there were reports a few weeks ago about not enough doctors being available to work shifts in the BRHC emergency department. Viewed in that context, it is unsurprising that a staffing issue arose this week in the Brandon maternity ward, but perhaps surprising it had not happened earlier.

That said, the possibility of the problem recurring in the near future appears unlikely, given that two new OB/GYN doctors have been hired and will soon begin work at the BRHC.

When situations like this occur, it is always tempting to point the finger of blame. In this case, however, who do you blame for a continent-wide doctor shortage?

It is easy to be angry about a crisis that almost occurred, but hospital department closures are a clear consequence of our understaffed and over-burdened health-care system — and they will likely continue to happen until more doctors, nurses and other health professionals are added to the system.

In the case of this week’s Brandon maternity ward issue, the BRHC asked for help covering the unfilled shifts and doctors from across the province stepped up to help. They made the best of a bad situation, and we should be grateful they were able to do so.