Alberta Hospitals Minister Matt Jones says he doesn’t blame doctors for the delay in a core government plan to address extreme pressures in the province’s emergency departments.
Jones said Tuesday he’s hopeful the government and doctors can find a way to hire the emergency department triage liaison physicians he previously promised for February.
“I’m optimistic we can find a solution. There’s two sides to this, and I take accountability for our side of it,” he said at an unrelated news conference in Calgary.
Jones made the pledge in January in an effort to expedite patients through emergency rooms in the wake of stories of suffering and potentially preventable hospital deaths.
His remarks come a day after United Conservative Premier Danielle Smith was more blunt. When asked for an update on the file, she pointed to the Alberta Medical Association, which represents doctors.
“I would just suggest you ask the AMA,” she said Monday.
Dr. Brian Wirzba, the association’s president, later said in a statement that weeks of confusion among government ministries and agencies about who is responsible for contract conditions left negotiations in limbo.
“Contrary to what was stated in a government press conference today, the delay has not been on the AMA’s end and is not solely related to the compensation rate,” he said.
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Wirzba said the government didn’t follow a previous agreement that outlines how “alternative relationship plans,” or ARPs, are meant to be approved and implemented when approaching the triage liaison physician file.
ARPs are special wage agreements for doctor pay that differ from the traditional fee-for-service model.
Wirzba said doctors want to take on the jobs, and there is no time to waste in resolving the issue, given the public’s concern about the emergency department “crisis.”
On Tuesday, Jones said he’s met with ER physicians interested in the role, and got a budget of $20 million approved over two years to implement the position in nine hospitals across Alberta.
“(I’m) certainly not blaming the AMA,” he said.
Asked twice about the government failing to follow the negotiation process laid out in the master agreement, Jones reiterated that the government continues to engage with the association.
A January letter from the organization’s section of emergency medicine outlined seven sticking points with the government’s proposed contract.
They relate to pay rates, administration burdens and liability protection for the special ER doctors.
So far, Jones said, the government has agreed to one adjustment for after-hours pay.
“We’re happy to work through those, although we can’t work through them immediately. It does take time,” said Jones.
He said a meeting with the doctors’ association is scheduled for this month, and more meetings are to follow as part of negotiations for a broader pay agreement.
Jones did not offer a timeline for when the triage liaison position might be deployed.
If both sides can’t come to terms soon, Jones said, short-term contingency plans could include bringing in nurse practitioners and triage nurses or boosting emergency room budgets.
The Nurse Practitioner Association of Alberta said the backlog of patients in waiting rooms isn’t because of a lack of assessments by nurses, nurse practitioners or other front line staff.
“The pressures facing Alberta’s emergency departments are largely driven by broader system capacity challenges — including limited community-based resources and ongoing barriers to admitting patients from the ED and discharging patients from hospital,” it said in a statement to The Canadian Press.
Alberta’s Opposition NDP has painted the original announcement as a communications exercise rather than an effective strategy to address ER concerns.
Sharif Haji, the NDP critic for primary health services, told reporters Tuesday that Albertans are no closer to a solution that could address crowded ERs, and accused the minister of dragging his feet.
“We’re talking about people dying in hospitals while awaiting care. It’s not a time to play a blame game,” he said.
“What needs to happen is governing, and this government is incapable of governing.”
Haji added that deploying triage liaison physicians was originally presented as an urgent, temporary solution, so the government tying that solution to a long-term contract negotiation was “baffling.”
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