An ER crisis averted, but where are the new doctors?

Opinion

On Wednesday, Manitoba Health Minister Uzoma Asagwara announced that the province has seen an increase of 201 net new physicians practising in the province since the NDP formed government in 2023, and that an additional 12 have accepted offers and will begin their practices in the coming months.

In response, Dr. Nichelle Desilets, who’s the president of Doctors Manitoba, said the increased number of doctors is great, but many more are needed. She pointed out that with just 219 physicians per 100,000 residents, Manitoba still ranks second-worst in Canada compared to other provinces.

“Physicians are in demand everywhere,” she added, “so they can get offers from anywhere. In fact, other provinces are actively recruiting Manitoba physicians as we speak.”

Brandonites were reminded of the seriousness of the province’s doctor shortage on Wednesday, when it was reported that Prairie Mountain Health had sent an “urgent” email to its physicians, warning that there were 10 vacant shifts from Thursday to Sunday for day, evening and night shifts in the Brandon Regional Health Centre’s emergency department.

“Due to unforeseen physician shortages, we are looking for urgent help in the Brandon ED, particularly for this week,” the email said. It requested that physicians in the region fill those shifts and, thankfully, doctors responded by filling the shifts and ensuring the Brandon ER would remain open through the weekend.

It is tempting to say “all’s well that ends well,” but doing so would ignore how close the largest hospital between Winnipeg and Regina came to having to close its ER. And it would ignore the fact that this isn’t the first time that the problem of staffing issues has arisen at the Brandon Regional Health Centre and other Westman health-care facilities.

In January, it was reported that a multi-day disruption in maternity services at the BRHC was averted after two obstetricians from Winnipeg and a pair of family physicians from rural Manitoba (Desilets was one of those doctors) agreed to fill shifts overseeing care for expectant mothers at the facility.

In June, Desilets warned that just 20 rural hospitals, approximately one-quarter of the total, would have their emergency rooms reliably open, 24 hours a day, seven days a week over the summer. Prairie Mountain Health has 33 hospitals, but only seven have ERs that are reliably open 24-7 — Brandon, Dauphin, Killarney, Neepawa, Russell, Swan River and Virden — and now Brandon has once again experienced staffing challenges that threatened its ability to keep the ER open.

Something about this issue does not compute. On the same day that Prairie Mountain Health was desperately searching for doctors to prevent the Brandon ER from closing, our health minister was bragging that the province has added more than 200 “net new” doctors, and will be adding another dozen soon. Where are these new doctors?

Given the seriousness and persistence of ER staffing issues and closures in Westman, it is fair ask if the public — who have an obvious stake in ERs being open and providing quality care — are being given all the information they require in order to understand the true nature and severity of the problem.

For example, how often does the threat of an ER closure in Brandon arise, yet the public is not informed? The public only became aware of this latest near-crisis because of information provided to the Sun by an anonymous source.

If Brandon’s ER is experiencing staffing issues that threaten its ability to offer 24-7 service, should we assume that some or all of the other “24-7 ERs” in the region are encountering similar challenges that the public may or may not be aware of?

How many doctors in the PMH region have privileges at the BRHC, and is that part of the problem? What are the roles, or potential roles, of hospitalists, nurse practitioners and physicians’ assistants? Could they be part of the solution?

So many questions, so few answers — with the health and well-being of Westman residents hanging in the balance.

Like Desilets, we applaud the addition of more than 200 new physicians in the province, but we also join the doctor in pointing out that Manitoba is still a long distance away from solving its doctor shortage.

Until that shortage is further reduced, to the point of making ER closures a thing of the past, our health minister would be wise to refrain from self-congratulatory victory laps.