The Reminder is making its archives back to 2003 available on our website. Please note that, due to technical limitations, archive articles are presented without the usual formatting.
Safety questions have surfaced around the Flin Flon General Hospital's practice of scheduling the same doctor to simultaneously staff the emergency room and care for regular hospital patients. But neither the provincial government nor the regulatory body for physicians oppose what is a common practice in small communities with relatively quiet hospitals. A spokesperson for the province said this type of double duty 'does not breach any laws, regulation, standards of practice or codes of ethics that we are aware of.' 'This kind of staffing arrangement is not unique, and has been used at other facilities in smaller communities,' said the spokesperson. No policy Bill Pope, registrar and CEO of the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Manitoba, said the regulatory body has no specific policy on this matter. He said it is 'probably more common than not in smaller hospitals' and is a decision for individual health regions to make. 'It's really a judgment call on the need' and whether there are other doctors available to help if the need arises, Pope said. The provincial spokesperson said there is indeed a process in place in Flin Flon to ensure an extra physician is readily available if required. See 'Safe...' on pg. Continued from pg. 'While one physician covering both ER and on-call (for the hospital) may not be seen as optimal, the safeguards in place help ensure patient safety remains at the forefront,' added the spokesperson. Concerns over doctors pulling double duty have been raised at public health forums by concerned resident Tom Heine. 'If you are trying to fill two positions at the same time...can you do it properly? That's my main question,' he told The Reminder last year. Heine has also expressed concern over Flin Flon ER doctors working 24-hour shifts, but again there is nothing prohibiting this practice in Manitoba. Some research, however, suggests that doctors who work shifts of that length are more prone to serious mistakes. Northern Health Region CEO Helga Bryant has said that while administrators may not view 24-hour shifts as 'optimal,' the physicians themselves devise their own schedules. Bryant told The Reminder last year that physicians decide how they provide around-the-clock ER coverage as long as they meet standards set by the College of Physicians and Surgeons. 'The length of the shifts aren't delineated in the agreement,' Bryant said. 'That's up to the physicians to organize their work. So they could anytime work something different. But because we place on them the expectation of providing that 24-hour, seven-day-a-week uninterrupted service, we don't then go and say, 'Oh, but you need to do it this way and this way and this way' because we have laid that expectation on them.' Bryant said if she had refused to sign the latest ER agreement unless doctors took on shorter shifts, she believes the physicians would not have signed.
