Local doctors working in the Lac La Biche region are speaking out ... and considering moving out ... as the provincial UCP government threatens, they say, to reduce their wages and reduce local health services
Local doctors have created a newspaper and social media advertisement with the Lac La Biche POST that voices their fears and opposition to upcoming changes.
The local doctors' campaign has also reached out to Lac La Biche County councillors, who are sending out letters to provincial politicians, including MLA Laila Goodridge, Alberta Health Minister Tyler Shandro and Premier Jason Kenney about their thoughts on proposed changes to how the government wants to pay doctors, how many hours they want emergency wards in rural Alberta to be open and how rural residents can have their babies.
Councillors agreed unanimously at their public meeting on Wednesday to send out the letter of support for their local doctors.
Lac La Biche POST supports doctors' message
The Lac La Biche POST newspaper is also supporting the stance of the local doctors by providing their special notice to the community free of charge in the newspaper and on the digital platforms offered by the POST and LakelandToday.ca. Any commission the advertisement would have generated for Lac La Biche POST sales members will be paid by POST management.
Doctors consider leaving
According to the information package compiled by doctors of the Lac La Biche Medical Association, upwards of four physicians are seriously considering leaving the community due to the new guidelines proposed by Premier Jason Kenney's UCP government.
In a document released last week, the government is looking at re-organizing the services at urban and rural hospitals, reducing the amount of compensated time that doctors can spend with patients, moving obstetrics departments to more centralized areas and closing emergency rooms during overnight hours. The report also calls for the overall closure of five Alberta hospitals. The rest of the changes in the 300-page report, can be found here.
Lac La Biche doctors are urging community members to contact provincial politicians to express their concerns with the proposed changes that area physicians say will completly alter the local healthcare landscape by April1 of this year.
The full advertisement will also appear in the March 2 edition of the Lac La Biche POST.
