Letter to the Editor: Action needed from the Ministry of Health and Northern Health in support of Fort St. John Hospital Emergency Department

EDITOR’S NOTE: This Letter to the Editor was penned by Fort St John Emergency Doctors and Medical Staff. It was sent in by the Doctors of BC, a voluntary association of 14,000 physicians, residents and medical students in British Columbia. Energeticcity had asked to speak with local physicians for a story on the state of the local hospital and was told that they are only comfortable providing an opinion piece at this time.

FORT ST. JOHN, B.C. — As the doctors working to provide care to patients in Fort St John’s emergency department (ED), we are increasingly finding ourselves in difficult positions.

There have been times when we have had to stop accepting patients in emergency and send them to other locations, sometimes over great distances. This is an absolute last resort and not something we want to see continue for our community.

We love our job, we love the area, we care about our patients, but we desperately need help. We are writing to let the residents of Fort St John know what is happening and to urgently request that Northern Health and the Ministry of Health take action to address these problems now.

Fort St John’s emergency sees about 30,000 patients every year. The community has only five Family Doctors in Fort St. John with the training required to work in the emergency department.

To provide 24/7 care in Fort St John, emergency requires 90 shifts per month, 8 hours per shift, with just one doctor working each shift.

The five family doctors can cover a little more than half of these shifts, but the rest need to be covered by locums – physicians who temporarily come in from other communities.

We have wonderful nurses and support staff, but for doctors, working in emergency is not our only work – some of us also cover maternity shifts in the hospital, and we all have a community family practice.

On each shift, anywhere from 20 to 35 patients will be taken care of. While most patients can be treated within a few hours and then sent home, approximately 3 to 5 patients need more intense care—like a special assessment from an Internal Medicine Specialist. However, we’ve been without one for quite a few years, which means the ED doctors are often left to manage these complex patients.

This situation becomes particularly precarious during holiday weekends and the busy summer period. We want better for our patients and our fellow doctors.

It’s a tricky circle. We are about 10 hospital doctors short of providing the necessary care, and the lack of an Internal Medicine Specialist impacts our ability to recruit other doctors, including emergency doctors. It seems they don’t want to move here knowing the current conditions. Stress and burnout are real.

The result of all of these shortages and challenges is the periodic closure of our emergency department. These closures are anticipated weeks in advance, and every possible effort is made to fill the shift, but given the current crisis, we are sometimes unable to do so.

As your emergency doctors, we are doing our best under difficult conditions.

Please be patient with us as we work to deliver the best possible care. But this situation cannot continue. We need action from Northern Health and the Ministry of Health to attract and retain doctors here and we need it now.

We also suggest you reach out to your MLA with any concerns.

Written by Fort St John Emergency Doctors and Medical Staff