Premier Danielle Smith took questions from members of the Lethbridge Chamber of Commerce this week, and was pressed on the need for obstetrical care in the city.
Dr. Sharon Rowen pointed out an Alberta Health Services prenatal clinic was funded for a year, but does not know what will happen when the money runs out. She is a family physician, specialized in low risk pregnancies and says she is one of the few remaining obstetrical care providers in the community.
“While I applaud your ongoing commitment to maintaining healthcare services and funding and increase in cardiology services locally, I must be honest — our team is in crisis. Lethbridge delivers 2,200 plus babies a year. That is equivalent to the South Health Campus in Calgary and we have one obstetrician locally,” Rowen said to Smith.
“Those of us in the trenches, we are getting tired. So my question to you is why is maintaining a high level of care for our senior population who belong to country clubs and provide donor support more important than providing care to pregnant patients and newborns in a safe and sustainable manner?”
Rowen said she wants to see a commitment from the government to help maintain the services for pregnant patients. Smith said she believed the problem stemmed from a lack of anesthesiologists, which Rowen said is not the case.
“It seems to me there has go to be a better way of identifying at-risk moms and then maybe having them go to a major hospital but we have midwives who are able to have home births and if we can have midwives doing home births, surely we would be able to support more maternity in all o four rural hospitals and so it’s seems to me it hinges on not having enough anesthesiologists,” Smith said.
Rowen responded, pointing out the problem lies in recruitment and retention, adding there needs to be ongoing support from governments and AHS to keep doctors working in the city.
Smith said there is still work to be done and pointed to other aspects of healthcare her government has addressed, such as surgery wait times and ambulance responses.
“We wanted to prove that we could actually make some changes in a short period of time but we are just going to need more time,” she said. “Lethbridge has very different medical needs than Medicine Hat and yet we are treating them as a single zone, which makes no sense. We have got to actually get more granular so that as you say, Lethbridge becomes the regional hub with support from the other hospitals and then we can have other services being done in the other hospitals. There should not be a recruitment challenge in Lethbridge, it is a glorious community.”
In an interview after the exchange with Smith, Rowen said she believes the issue in Lethbridge is not well known and she said the premier seemed surprised by her question,
“It’s difficult, I am both a doctor and a young mom and pregnancy care and being pregnant at this time is very different for patients than it was even three to five years ago when I had my own babies here at the hospital,” she said. “When I see patients in clinic, they are worried. They hear that there are not enough doctors to care for all the patients, that there can be troubles with covering shifts at the hospital and so that is very difficult. The hospital continues to always have a doctor available seven days a week, 24 hours a day though to deliver patients’ babies.”
NDP candidate for Lethbridge West, Rob Miyashiro, called Smith’s answer insulting and said being a major regional hospital, it should not be a challenge to have a baby in Lethbridge.
“Albertans deserve access to healthcare at every stage of their lives. Last year at this time we had seven OBGYNs practising in Lethbridge, and now we have one. We are hearing every day from folks who are going without necessary care because of the choices made by this UCP government,” he said.
Smith did not take questions from reporters at the event.