Proposed emergency department agreement close

If the province agrees to a proposal Sault Area Hospital is nearly ready to send, then SAH will be able to continue to guarantee full coverage of its emergency department by physicians.

So says Dr. Alan McLean, SAH's chief of staff.

At a hospital board meeting last night, McLean reported that the proposal is in its final stages of preparation and he believes it will be sent to the Ministry of Health and Long Term Care for approval in the next week or two.

The proposal includes access to specialists and support that local doctors say is vital to safe operation of an emergency department.

SAH is looking for assurances the province will agree to the proposal and fund it.

As reported earlier by SooToday.com, SAH emergency department physicians have set May 31 as the deadline to have an agreement in place.

If there's no agreement guaranteeing them better access to needed specialists by that time, the physicians say they won't be able to guarantee a doctor will be available to staff the emergency department 24 hours a day every day.

"There is a proposal that involves continued use of University Hospital Network (UHN) internal medicine specialists and possible use of UHN sub-specialty surgical specialists," said McLean.

The proposed agreement would also continue to use the services of Criticall, a provincial referral service used by emergency department physicians to access specialty care for patients in urgent need.

"Criticall has been a very great service in many ways," McLean said. "We have run into some difficulty which apparently other hospitals have as well with certain specialties not wishing to accept patients from here."

He cited two recent cases where hand injuries would result in the patients experiencing permanent disability if not treated by emergency plastic surgeons.

McLean said it's highly unrealistic to expect the few plastic surgeons we have in Sault Ste. Marie to be on call 24 hours a day, seven days a week so the hospital can provide seamless coverage in that specialty.

But that is what some plastic surgeons contacted by Criticall suggested in a few recent cases.

There have been times that plastic surgeons contacted by Criticall have said the call is non-urgent and refused to receive patients Sault Ste. Marie emergency department physicians have believed required immediate attention, McLean said.

"The emergency physician, as it stands right now has no other option," said McLean. "We hope we will be able to remedy that in the near future."

McLean said the proposed agreement offers good short-term solutions, but local physicians would eventually like to deliver more specialist care in the north rather than continue to rely on physicians from the greater Toronto area for care.