Prince George Christine and Lauren Kennedy residents are excited to welcome their first child, but now they are one of the many couples of all the British columbia who face uncertainty while the province lidia with a shortage of obstetric specialists.
Lauren, who has 39 weeks pregnant with his first child, said she was scared to learn that the gaps in the programming of doctors of the Maternity Department at the University Hospital of Northern BC (UHNBC) in Prince George could force her to be sent hundreds of kilometers away.
Prince George is the largest service center in northern BC and often provides medical care services for the entire region.
“You do not think of a community of this size that this is something you would have to deal with, and in addition to all the other things that entails being a new father,” said Lauren.
“It really is a challenge not to know what to expect.”
On July 21, Northern Health said that as of August, he would experience a shortage of obstetric specialists and warned that the gaps in coverage could lead to “high -risk” patients being transferred to other hospitals in the province.
Prince George, Kamloops, Kelowna and Dawson Creek are among the many BC interior communities that face the interruptions of the maternity service.
Despite the recent efforts of the province to train and recruit more workers, the Minister of Health, Josie Osborne, says that the challenges to fill the shortage of personnel remain.
“I think there is the possibility that we see that kind of tension in services in other places,” Osborne said at a press conference on July 21.
Christine and Lauren said they are not sure what to do and have been taking the situation day by day.
“We do not want to lose sight that we are quite privileged and we can, you know, solve it when it comes to this, but there will be many families that could not do it too,” said Christina.
“We both grew up here. This is our community. We want our daughter to be born here, and it is quite sad to think that I might need to go elsewhere.”
Local doctors struggling to find coverage
Not only parents are concerned about gaps in coverage, but also people who also provide maternity attention.
Dr. Kasandra Joss, an interim-objective protagonist in UHNBC, says that her colleagues have been affected by panic, and has been in emergency meetings with obstetric suppliers to find coverage during the month of August.
“It’s a lot of confusion, and we have really bogged us all in our offices trying to explain to patients what this means,” he said.
Joss says that a doctor reorganized his vacation, and two doctors from other communities agreed to come and help provide coverage.
While health authorities have issued guarantees that all those who need attention will receive it, Joss calls his “scary” situation.
She said that these doctors have intervened because they cannot risk the health and safety of the communities they serve, but warned that the existing medical workforce is spreading too much.
“It is absolutely the most stressful about what any of us has happened,” he said.
“The writing of these things is like, only if you are ‘a high -risk patient’ [will you be sent away]and only gives these false guarantees to patients. We cannot guarantee that we will be able to deliver them safely in the current circumstances. ”
She says that high -risk pregnancies can include anyone who has never had a baby, people with bigger body sizes, women over 35 or 40 years old, people who have had a previous caesarean section, or if an ultrasound shows that the baby is too large or too small.
“The point is that so -called low -risk women become high risk in the fall of a penny.”
Joss says that the services affected by the lack of obstetras are extensive and include epidural, induction of work, guning babies, severe tear and placental extraction.
She says that she is also extremely anxious to transfer women to other hospitals in emergency situations.
“Anyone who has worked in the hospital and had to deal with the patient transfer network knows that the system is also quite overloaded, and it is difficult to get people in a timely manner,” he said. “And sometimes it is not safe to transfer a woman. If she is too far in her work, you can’t risk putting that woman in the air because everything gets worse.”
Recruitment challenges
The Minister of Health, Josie Osborne, recognized the anxiety that interruptions and the threat of interruptions are causing families, and said that no one who needs attention would be rejected when a birth is imminent.
“The health authorities are working very hard trying to find locums and assistance, helping to fill those gaps where it exists and ensure that the services are there for the people that we will continue doing that job,” he said on July 21.
Dr. Ronald Chapman, Vice President of Medicine of Northern Health, said they have been working to recruit additional obstetricians in UHNBC while trying to cover the gaps in the services.
“With any interruption of the service we have, we are recruiting and looking continuously creative forms and means to fill any service emptiness we have, and that is fluid and that can change,” he said.
“I am very happy to say that at least we have some obstetricians in process, especially for Prince George, so we are actively working with some of those doctors to see if we can successfully recruit Prince George.”
Joss says that his department currently has three full -time obstetricians, but Northern Health only gave them the approval to recruit up to eight positions after an interruption of the 12 -hour service in May.
“‘I have been dying to inform the public about what is happening with our system just to give patients to think about what they want to do.”
She says that they have already been interviewing candidates, but that they have encountered administrative challenges and delays with international medical graduates through the College of Physicians and surgeons of BC.
Joss says that she is worried about coverage in September if they cannot accelerate licenses.
Future parents Christine and Lauren say they are trying to handle the situation the best they can, but feel they are sailing for a system failure.
“In pregnancy, I have been lucky. We have been lucky that it has been quite simple, but it is really frustrating that this is something that we even have to deal with,” said Lauren. “It is putting a lot of stress in a situation that is already so unknown and unpredictable.”
