Dr. Warren Thirsk, head of emergency medicine for Alberta’s doctors association, has issued a bold challenge to Premier Danielle Smith: join him on shift to experience the realities of emergency care in the province. This invitation being issued at a time when many Alberta EDs are facing increasing emergency room waiting times and hallway medicine.
Dr. Thirsk thinks it is high time that Premier Smith feels the patients’ frustration. He wants her to experience what it’s like for them to stay and wait a few hours in hallways. He hopes that this experience will equip her with a more vivid picture of the moral injury that physicians endure. They carry this burden as they work to treat an increasing number of patients who need their help.
“It’s this kind of vicarious trauma, this inability to help when we’re helpers, that is causing us to leave,” Dr. Thirsk stated, emphasizing the emotional toll on healthcare professionals who grapple with these challenges daily.
Dr. Thirsk’s not-quite-six-a.m. arrival found him walking into a hallway that was already busy as can be. Patients, transported overnight by ambulance, crowded the hallway clamoring for their care. He recalled that one patient with a broken hip shouldn’t have waited four hours. In one disheartening case, after finally being accepted into the hospital, one patient then spent the next six hours waiting in the hospital’s hallway.
When she’s got a health emergency, you honestly believe that she’s going to let the premier sit 13 hours in my waiting room? No way in heck! He asked rhetorically, highlighting the disparity between political leaders and the everyday experiences of patients.
Independent consultant Dr. Shelley Duggan, who has been deeply engaged with Alberta’s healthcare transformation, pointed to a recent survey. It exposes national issues that extend well past the confines of Alberta by itself. When patients are able to access care, they are generally pleased with the care they receive. As Dr. Duggan noted, access itself remains a key concern.
“It’s a very complex issue — it’s not just one simple fix,” Dr. Duggan remarked, identifying contributing factors such as a shortage of specialists and family doctors. She pointed to the nearly 20 percent of patients seeking emergency care just last year who left without receiving treatment. She attributed this statistic as “disturbing.”
Findings from the Alberta Medical Association’s recent public consultation survey drew responses from more than 1,100 Albertans. This demonstrates the public’s intense worry over what’s become intolerable conditions within emergency departments. Dr. Duggan urged that thousands of patients are stuck in hospitals because there’s a lack of empty beds in continuing care homes. This all grows the problem of overcrowding.
Kyle Warner, a motorized representative from the Alberta government, vigorously attacked the survey results. He claimed that they don’t even begin to tell the complete story, and in fact misrepresent the overall health data. He pointed out that Alberta’s emergency department wait times are the shortest in Canada among the other big provinces. Alberta, as reiterated above, happens to be consistently one of the best provinces in Canada on emergency care.
There’s far more to be done, Warner’s Office, Department of Defense, Federal Highway Administration. Warner. That is why we are making recruitment our priority to address the needs highlighted by recent concerns expressed by doctors and patients alike.
Dr. Thirsk remains firm in his belief that without direct experience of the challenges faced by healthcare professionals and patients, policymakers may lack a true understanding of the situation.
Until you make that journey yourself, you don’t truly understand. He drove his message home hard. To combat such a move, he encouraged Premier Smith to put herself in her constituents’ shoes and experience the crisis through their eyes.
