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.
Doctors at the Flin Flon General Hospital emergency room will soon stop working 24-hour shifts in a move hailed by patient-advocates. Beginning Nov. 1, ER physicians will revert to shifts of 12 hours, a length that research suggests is more amenable to optimal patient care. 'As a result of our most recent discussion, the physicians agreed to begin scheduling 12-hour shifts,' said Helga Bryant, CEO of the Northern Health Region. Bryant has long held concerns about 24-hour shifts but until now was unable to convince the physicians _ who oversee their own scheduling _ to cut back. While she first publicized the shift change in an interview with CBC last week, Bryant said 'ongoing discussions' had been taking place for more than a year. To ensure doctors 'are at their best and most rested,' Bryant said physicians who work a 12-hour ER shift will not work at their clinic practice the next day. Thomas Heine, chair of the local Concerned Citizens Health Care Committee, welcomes the shorter shifts. 'It will be a lot safer for one thing and that's basically what we've been fighting for,' he said. Worries Heine has repeatedly raised worries over 24-hour shifts, saying that other occupations, such as truck drivers, disallow such lengthy shifts because of safety concerns. Although ER doctors oversee their own scheduling, Heine had been critical of the health region for approving contracts that permitted 24-hour shifts. There had been concern within the health region, however, that the ER doctors would not sign a contract that took away 24-hour shifts. Physicians across North America have long worked 24-hour shifts, but the practice has come under increasing scrutiny in recent years. 'Studies have found (medical) residents who work around the clock make more serious, life-threatening mistakes and more diagnostic errors than those on shorter shifts,' stated a 2011 Globe and Mail article. Also in 2011, a Quebec labour arbitrator ruled that these shifts pose a danger to medical residents' health. Meanwhile, the U.S. Institute of Medicine recommends that medical residents work no more than 16 consecutive hours during their first year after graduation. The 24-hour shifts factored into a three-part piece on the Flin Flon General Hospital that aired last week on CBC-TV out of Winnipeg. For more on that story, please see page 6.
