Surrey, B.C., ER doctors call for ‘new leadership’ amid ‘toxic’ work environment

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This article was published 17/09/2024 (744 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

SURREY, B.C. – British Columbia politicians are celebrating connecting more people with family doctors, but it comes as emergency room physicians at Surrey Memorial Hospital say conditions there continue to crumble.

A letter sent to the president of Fraser Health authority Dr. Victoria Lee, and published online, warns that deteriorating conditions in the department are “unequivocally leading to substandard care” and creating an “increasingly toxic work environment.”

The letter calls for “new leadership,” saying wait times in the ER often exceed 12 hours and the rate of patients who leave the department without being seen has tripled to 8.4 per cent since 2020-2021.

“The combination of long shifts, overwhelming patient volumes, high acuity, inadequate support, compensation disparities and the invalidation of our lived experiences has contributed to significant burnout among our staff,” the letter says.

“Physicians are facing exhaustion, anxiety and an overall decline in their mental health, which ultimately compromises patient care.”

Premier David Eby and Health Minister Adrian Dix were in Surrey on Tuesday, where a new hospital is being built to announce that more than 248,000 people have been connected to a family doctor or nurse practitioner since a provincial registry was launched in July 2023.

Eby said the province is working on addressing health-care pressures by building the second hospital in Surrey and connecting more people with family doctors to reduce the need for them to go to the emergency room.

“The biggest challenge is around the recruitment and retention of health-care workers. With more than 100 new doctors at Surrey Memorial Hospital, I know we’re headed in the right direction. And I also know those emergency room doctors are under huge pressure,” he said.

With less than a week to go before the launch of the provincial election campaign, Eby said former Liberal governments have failed to build a second hospital in Surrey and this marks the first time in more than 20 years that fewer British Columbians are looking for a family doctor than the year previous.

A statement from Fraser Health says it understands the seriousness of the concerns and it will be responding directly to the physicians “to address them comprehensively.”

“While we have more work to do, we are pleased to report that in addition to the thousands of staff already working at the hospital, since July 2023 we posted 575 net new positions for the Surrey Memorial Hospital and Surrey communities,” the statement says.

The health authority says of the new positions, 364 have been filled, including 24 out of 27 new pediatric emergency positions.

The letter from the doctors says that since 2021, staffing has increased eight per cent, while patient volumes have jumped 30 per cent.

It says doctors have tried dozens of times to declare a “Code Orange” when they believe the department is pushed beyond a safe level, but 24 of those 25 requests have been denied, making doctors reluctant to call for help.

A statement from the B.C. Conservatives accuses Eby of ignoring the crisis at Surrey Memorial.

“This is not just mismanagement; it’s a complete betrayal of our health-care professionals and patients,” Surrey MLA Elenore Sturko said in the statement.

In a radio interview on Red FM on Tuesday, B.C. Conservative Leader John Rustad said his intention is to increase the number of beds in the new hospital and bring in a maternity ward.

He said Surrey will soon be a city of one million people, so the hospital will need additional services, and he would want to see a facility that would meet those future needs.

“We need to make sure we have the health professionals in terms of the training, in terms of the recruitment, but that is the commitment. We need those services here in Surrey,” he said.

Eby said Rustad’s call to review the project means construction would stop and the people in Surrey would be denied a second emergency room.

“We cannot afford that risk. We can’t cut health care. We need to expand it,” Eby said.

– By Ashley Joannou in Vancouver

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 17, 2024