The B.C. government has committed $7.5 million towards bolstering staffing of physicians at three Interior health-care facilities, including Shuswap Lake General Hospital (SLGH).
The Ministry of Health said Wednesday that the funding is to help stabilize physician emergency-room coverage at the Salmon Arm hospital, at Okanagan General Hospital in Oliver and at Nicola Valley Hospital and Health Centre in Merritt.
Interior Health is working with local physicians on the three service contracts for emergency services at these hospitals.
In an Oct. 18 media release, ministry explained the new contracts will help the Province’s efforts to recruit more physicians in rural communities, “as they will compensate them for their time spent at the hospital caring for patients with complex and time-intensive needs.”
“This departs from the fee-for-service payment model under which physicians are paid based primarily on the number of patients they see in a day,” said the ministry, adding that the service contracts, patients and nurses will benefit from more regular on-site physician presence, which will help emergency rooms in these hospitals remain open.
“B.C., like all jurisdictions in Canada, is facing recruitment and retention challenges that were exacerbated by the recent COVID-19 pandemic, the ongoing toxic-drug crisis and the rising number of patients with complex health-care needs, and we know that these challenges are more prominent in rural and remote communities,” said Health Minister Adrian Dix.“That is why we are taking immediate actions to bolster the recruitment of more physicians for our patients and their care teams.”
Over the summer, both the City of Salmon Arm and the Columbia Shuswap Regional District (CSRD) received presentations from SLGH’s head of internal medicine department, Dr. Scott Mckee, who shared concerns around 17-year old plans for expanding the hospital’s intensive care unit (ICU), medical wards and surgery that had not yet come to fruition.
“Between 2006 and 2023, no major infrastructure modernization nor service expansion has taken place,” McKee told CSRD directors in August. “We are becoming the equivalent of a rural level one hospital, stabilizing patients then moving them to another centre.”
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Staffing at the hospital, of RNs (registered nurses) in particular, has also been a concern. In a Sept. 27 letter to update local governments on the situation at SLGH, McKee explained critical care service has been “essentially stalled by resignations of experienced RNS and overall absence of staffing.”
“The erosion of RN staff and the inability to replace or rehire has been the case since around 2021 at the height of the pandemic,” wrote McKee. “There is a strong feeling that an upgraded HAU (high acuity unit)/ICU, with 4 beds and 2 staff (currently 3 beds and one nurse) would significantly improve the attractiveness of Salmon Arm as a work environment.” Regarding infrastructure improvements, McKee provided an update on the Future Site Plan (FSP) for SLGH, explaining priorities have been set out, but even with approvals “in a timely fashion… the FSP as described could mean 12-20 years of continuous construction at the existing hospital site.”
McKee said medical staff greatly appreciate the support expressed by the city and regional district, suggesting it helped to get the FSP process started again with Interior Health
“We appreciate that preservation of local health care is not just in the interest of doctors and staff, but is a vital asset to our community as a whole,” wrote McKee.
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