A poignant plea for immediate action, 45 doctors from Summerside’s Prince County Hospital have signed an open letter, declaring a critical emergency in the region’s healthcare services. The East Prince Medical Staff Association highlights the ongoing challenges, including a lack of capacity for local internal medicine and critical care, coupled with the imminent loss of 24/7 in-house respiratory therapy coverage.
For the past 17 months, the hospital staff has valiantly navigated decreased critical care capacity, facing daunting human resource gaps. Health P.E.I.’s recent announcement of reduced critical-care patient intake due to staffing shortages in the progressive-care unit exacerbates the situation. The progressive-care unit, initiated to replace the closed intensive-care unit, now struggles with staffing inadequacies, prompting the transfer of patients to Charlottetown’s Queen Elizabeth Hospital.
The East Prince Medical Staff Association expresses concerns that the issues at Prince County Hospital could cascade across the entire provincial health system. Centralizing critical care services to Queen Elizabeth Hospital and relying on patient transfers pose risks of poor patient outcomes and strain an already overburdened EMS system. The association emphasizes the potential loss of critical and acute care capacity for the western half of the province as an unsafe and unacceptable strategy.
At the heart of the crisis lies a shortage of physicians, respiratory therapists, and nurses. The remaining staff faces burnout and overwhelming on-call demands, further risking the loss of doctors. Despite acknowledging staffing shortages, the healthcare leadership has been slow to implement tangible actions, leading to a failure to effectively plan and recruit healthcare professionals.
The East Prince Medical Staff Association urgently calls on health officials to develop a comprehensive and sustained action plan to address the challenges in the province’s health-care system. They stress the importance of timely and strategic recruitment efforts to mitigate the ongoing crisis. To this end, the association has revitalized a physician recruitment committee and offers to partner with Health P.E.I., expressing hope that with the right support and collaboration, the challenges at Prince County Hospital can be overcome.
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