By Angela Hill

Doctors to depart Shellbrook

Apr 20, 2011 | 5:28 PM

Three doctors have given their notice — they will leave Shellbrook by the end of July.

Currently the Prince Albert Parkland Health Region is looking for options to continue acute care services in the Shellbrook hospital.

“The health region is committed to continuing to provide emergency and in-patient services in Shellbrook and we are working with the ministry to try to come up with a short term and a long term plan to sustain services in Shellbrook,” said Dr. Brenda Hookenson, co-senior medical officer for the region.

As soon as the health region learned that the three—a husband and wife team and her brother—would be leaving the community, they told the mayor and local recruitment committee, she said.

“We have also informed the provincial recruitment agency of our physician shortage which will be developing in Shellbrook in the near future.”

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All of the seven doctors currently providing service in Shellbrook are family physicians and five of them participate in an on-call rotation, including emergency room coverage.

With the trio departing, the health region will need to recruit more people to ensure there is enough doctors to cover the hospital for 24-hours without burning any staff members out.

Two of the three physicians were in the community for about four years, and the third for slightly more than a year.

According to Hookenson, the doctors said they were leaving for family reasons, but an exit interview will be conducted to see what else can be learned from their experience.

Dr. Edmund Royeppen, the other co-senior medical officer, said that it often has to do with heavy workloads.

“One of the things that detracts from us being able to retain physicians in the rural area, for any degree of time, is call. Call is onerous, for young families it’s extremely difficult,” he said.

“Young physicians are able to do if for a time but I don’t think they see it as a long-term practice commitment that they should be making.”

Finding on-call suitability through various models is something they will look at in the near future, Royeppen said.

Shellbrook has been known as a good community for physicians, he said, the community’s closeness to the larger centre of Prince Albert, makes it easier for recruitment.

The community is preparing for the change.

“You see them out and around and chatting. They’ve certainly been a part of our community and we’re going to be sad to see them go,” said Shellbrook Mayor George Tomporowski.

“I think for the most part, people understand.”

While people do find the change frustrating, it is not directed at the doctors, he said.

It’s a fact of life in Saskatchewan and Canada —the frustration with upper levels of government that something wasn’t done earlier to address this shortage, Tomporowski said.

The departing doctors will not impact the health regions decision to move forward with a new integrated health facility for the community.

The hospital currently serves about 10,000 people from the town and surrounding area, including various First Nations communities.

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ahill@panow.com