The fight to bring more medical services and physicians to Martensville and Warman has been an ongoing battle for many years, and for Dr. Allison Adamus of Martensville Collective Health and Wellness (MCHW), it has been an exhausting one.
Since 2014, Dr. Adamus has been working tirelessly to bring awareness to the issue that the area is facing when it comes to physician recruitment and has hit numerous roadblocks along the way. Throughout these years, Adamus has met with multiple government officials, attended conferences and tried to shine a light on the daily challenges that the communities are facing.
Despite this work, according to Adamus, there has not been enough done to change the broken system that is currently in place, and bringing more physicians into the area is an ongoing issue.
This past April, the walk-in clinic that had been previously offered at MCHW was closed despite the demand. Along with an increase in walk-in traffic, there was also an increase in the demand for regular primary care, and the doctors within MCHW were forced to make the choice to focus on their patients and close the walk-in clinic. There are hopes to offer this service again in the future; however, this would require an increase in physician supply.
In April, MCHW collected 1496 signatures for a petition to take to the Saskatchewan Legislature as guests of NDP Health Critic Vicki Mowat. Adamus had the opportunity to sit and discuss the issues with Premier Scott Moe, the Ministers of Health, Martensville-Warman MLA Terry Jenson and Martensville City Councilors and left feeling hopeful that changes would be possible.
This past June, Adamus also met with Minister of Health Paul Merriman and suggested that a possible solution to the current issue would be to offer physicians in the community an option of salaried positions, as this would be an attractive option to help recruit new graduates. Although the idea seemed to initially resonate with the Health Minister, Adamus received a discouraging question asking, “How do we know doctors will be honest with their salaries and not just see a couple patients a day?”
Last week, the Government of Saskatchewan released a long-term plan to spend approximately $60 million to hire and retain health-care workers within the province, with a plan to bring in an estimated 1000 physicians, nurses and health-care support staff to fill vacancies across the province. This plan includes bringing Nurse Practitioners into private clinic settings, including three within the Martensville-Warman constituency within the upcoming weeks; streamlining the process for internationally trained physicians to become licensed within the province.
“I can definitely see a role for Nurse Practitioners within the communities, but I worry that if there isn’t help for our clinic, or a drastic change as to how care is delivered through family doctors, we might lose more than we are gaining. That’s not to say we don’t need them, we do, but we need more,” Adamus said regarding the announcement.
Beginning Monday, September 19th, Dr. vonDewitz will be joining MCHW; however, she WILL NOT be accepting new patients and instead be helping out with the current patients that the clinic sees.
“I couldn’t even begin to tell you how much time our staff spends on the phone having to say no to people looking for a family doctor. It doesn’t make anyone feel good to have to do that and it just goes to show how much of a need there is in the community,” Adamus explained.
Earlier this summer, MCHW lost one of the doctors practicing within the clinic, which meant patients had to find a new doctor.
At that time, one clinic in Saskatoon was accepting new patients, but as of September 12th, the Saskatoon Health Region states that there are currently no clinics accepting new patients. In addition to this, walk-in clinic wait times are often sitting at two hours or more and ER wait times are continually increasing.
The health care worker shortage isn’t unique to Martensville and Warman, or even to Saskatchewan, as it is something that is affecting the entire country; however, Adamus noted that it has hit us locally harder because “We weren’t on a level playing field to begin with and we have already been struggling as the growth of these communities has exceeded the growth of health care in the communities.”
These struggles leave the future of MCHW in jeopardy, and Adamus stated that they are currently taking things ‘month-by-month”. Physician services within the communities are owned and operated by physicians themselves, so without physicians, the bills, staff, and other expenses cannot be paid and the clinics cannot continue to operate.
“We have done it all and I don’t know what else to do. I feel like the only thing left to do is pray really hard that something happens and pray for doctors that want to come to Martensville, but how do I convince someone to come here when I am struggling so hard myself. This community is so rewarding to work for, it’s just a very frustrating situation,” Adamus stated.
Read next week’s issue of the Martensville Messenger for more information on the Government of Saskatchewan’s plan to improve health-care within the province and the struggles within health-care that are taking place not just locally, but country-wide.