RED LAKE, Ont. – A Red Lake clinic is urgently advising residents and those living in the surrounding area to anticipate shorter appointments and longer wait times as it struggles to find physicians and grapples with a provincial cut to its doctor allocation.
Recently, the Red Lake Medical Associates were told by the Ontario Ministry of Health that their funding through the Rural Northern Physician Group Agreement has decreased from seven to six funded positions for doctors, retroactive to April.
Health leaders in the area warn the move will exacerbate existing challenges in recruiting doctors and locum physicians, and leave local medical services falling dangerously short.
Sumeet Kumar, CEO of Red Lake's Margaret Cochenour Memorial Hospital, called the news a blow for the community.
"We were already struggling before in terms of keeping our ER doors open and serving the population," he said. "So it is really unfortunate this has happened. This is going to create a lot of negative impact in terms of how this will be construed within the community, and it will hamper the services they provide at this point in time."
Saturday urgent care clinic closes
One consequence of the provincial decision is that a Saturday morning urgent care clinic will stop operating, the clinic advised.
Kumar said patients suffering from minor ailments who are seeking medical attention contribute to overcrowding in the hospital’s emergency department, because there aren’t enough available general practitioners to oversee that level of care.
"With this decline in the number of physicians that are being made available to us, we're going to see a lot of negative impact of that on the services that we provide," he said. "What will happen is the patients are going to now, instead of going to a family health clinic, which was a possibility before, they are going to show up on our doors in the emergency department, which is not really supposed to be catering to that kind of population of patients."
The closure of the urgent care clinic on Saturdays is expected to put extra strain on the hospital and lead to extended wait times for patients as ED doctors are also limited.
“We will not be able to meet the needs and requirements of the patients in our community,” Kumar said.
As of Aug. 1, the Red Lake Family Health Team also advised patients via social media to stop sending electronic messages or leaving voice mail. However, with patient permission, the remaining physicians and staff may still use outgoing messaging, but incoming messages or replies will not be accepted.
Ministry of Health calls move part of "right-sizing"
NWOnewswatch reached out to the Ministry of Health for comment on the Rural & Northern Physician Group Agreement (RNPGA) and the impacts on Red Lake losing funding locum doctors.
A ministry spokesperson said the move was a result of a review.
“As part of the 2021 Physician Services Agreement, the Ontario Medical Association and the ministry jointly conducted a full physicians complement review for all 38 RNPGA communities. This review, based on right sizing and providing service in communities where it is needed most, resulted in an overall increase of physician complements in rural and northern communities.”
The Ministry did not respond to follow-up questions about the impacts of decreasing funding for physicians in Red Lake.
"We need assistance from the province to review this file and hopefully restore our complement back to seven with respect to the mines that are in town." said Mayor Fred Mota." They must access the services quite a bit."
Red Lake itself has a population of approximately 4,200 people. The hospital services on average nearly 14,500 patients per year, according to Kumar.
Kumar stated that if the Ministry of Health is basing its funding model strictly on Red Lake’s census data, the data would not accurately reflect the sheer volume of patients the hospital sees.
Red Lake is a hub community which services a significant number of First Nations in the surrounding area and in the far north, as well as migrant populations working in the mining industry, he said.
Mota stated that nearly 800 people from the community work in the mines and the employers "are very apprehensive about what their workers employees are going to do for medical services if services are cut."
With the potential construction of a bridge connecting the remote community of Pikangikum First Nation to Red Lake in the works, Mota asked “with our current pressure that we have and we're having difficulty sustaining our medical needs, what are we going to do in our future?”
Decision has domino effect on the region
In the struggle to keep the emergency department open, physicians and staff are working longer shifts, which is leading them to feel completely burned out, said Kumar. Unable to strike a reasonable work-life balance, he said senior physicians are putting in for early retirement, while others are putting in their resignations.
"That is causing a lot of concern for us because if we have physicians who are going to tender their resignations, we will not even have those physicians who are available in the community to serve us," said Kumar.
In a statement, the Red Lake Family Health Team said existing physicians are expected to leave the community over the coming months.
"It is anticipated that effective Oct. 1, there will be only four full-time equivalents to see to the needs of our community. As such, it is expected that less service will be available and will impact appointments, prescription renewals, insurance forms, etc."
Kumar also claimed there is a domino effect if the Red Lake Hospital has no choice but to close its doors. Not only will patients be sent away to other hospitals in the region, but the physician shortage will also affect acute care patients who will need to be sent to live in other hospitals.
The closest hospital is Dryden Regional Health Centre, which is 217 kilometres from Red Lake.
"No one hospital will be able to provide all the vacancies that will take care of the population that we would have for the patients with us. It's got to be multiple hospitals each probably offering two or three beds and it's going to be a domino effect for how that is going to be impacted," Kumar said. "The impact of that on the ESM, the ORNGE, it’s going to be a dramatic, significant impact to all other partners in the community and not just one hospital by itself."
