Doctors, nurses call for action on crumbling care as health ministers meet in Vancouver – CTV
Nov. 6, 2022
VANCOUVER – A family doctor who works in British Columbia and Alberta says patients who don’t get the care they need before ending up in overburdened emergency rooms should be a focus for quick action by the country’s health ministers as they meet in Vancouver.
Dr. Carllin Man said sicker patients without a family physician tend to return to ERs where burnt-out doctors and nurses put in longer and longer hours as colleagues leave the profession.
“For a long time, our health systems have relied on our goodwill as health-care professionals,” Man said. “We’re doing more and more when we should have stopped a long time ago, but there’s no one else. What are you going to do, just let those patients suffer? Of course not.”
Man, who works part-time at a walk-in clinic in Burnaby, B.C., as well as in emergency rooms in central Alberta, said he will need to refill some patients’ prescriptions during an upcoming 10-day vacation because there won’t be anyone to cover for him.
