Opposition questions P.E.I. health minister on patient registry, loss of another doctor | CBC News
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Opposition MLAs raised questions Tuesday in the P.E.I. Legislature about the state of the province’s health-care system, including the loss of another family physician and the Progressive Conservative government’s pledge to reduce the patient registry.
Liberal MLA and Opposition health critic Gord McNeilly called access to primary care in the province “one of the most urgent issues facing Islanders,” and said the governing Progressive Conservatives are without a plan to address it.
McNeilly questioned P.E.I. Health Minister Cory Deagle about Dr. Craig Malone, a Souris physician who told his patients last week that he would be closing his family practice on June 26, leaving 1,500 Islanders without a family doctor.
“Health P.E.I. has confirmed there is no replacement for the physician lined up,” McNeilly said, adding that there were 33,870 Islanders on the patient registry waiting to be assigned to a primary care provider as of the end of March.
“How do you plan to get your waitlist numbers to zero, as promised, when clearly they are trending in the wrong direction?”
Health care was the main topic in the legislative assembly Tuesday as MLAs raised questions about the impact new long-term care beds could have. The opposition parties also asked government what efforts are being made to prevent another Island doctor closing his practice. CBC’s Wayne Thibodeau has more.
The health minister said Malone is closing his Souris practice for personal reasons.
“There are reports circulating out there on social media that [Malone] was told that he’s not able to transfer his panel to Charlottetown and that Health P.E.I. wouldn’t allow him to open a clinic in Charlottetown. That is false. That’s not correct,” Deagle said, adding that Malone had asked to work at UPEI’s patient medical home.
“His fee-for-service model doesn’t fit within that model. A number of other locations were offered to him in Charlottetown to open up a clinic and transfer his patient load into Charlottetown. He’s decided not to take us up on that offer.”
In an emailed response to questions from CBC News, Health P.E.I. said it “explored alternative clinical practice options” in Charlottetown for Malone, but he did not offer to explore those alternatives.
The health authority said UPEI’s patient medical home is designed for team-based physicians who work within the Health P.E.I.-supported clinic. It said fee-for-service doctors operate independent practices and arrange and pay for their own staff and supports, which doesn’t align with the patient medical home model.
Health P.E.I. added that the UPEI patient medical home is “designated for new physicians who are salaried or contract-for-service and who will affiliate patients from the provincial patient registry.”
Deagle said during question period that the province is committed to reducing the number of people on the registry, adding that rebuilding the relationship with doctors and the Medical Society of P.E.I. has been one of his main priorities since taking on the health portfolio.
Asked by McNeilly how many family physicians the province currently has, Deagle said there are around 100, with about 70 practising family medicine.
McNeilly pointed to a previous goal set by Health P.E.I. to reduce the patient registry to fewer than 5,000 people by 2027, saying the waitlist is instead “moving in the wrong direction.”
Deagle said he didn’t want to “make any promises” about the registry’s numbers.
“Obviously we’d like it gone, but is that realistic? I don’t think that’s realistic,” he said.
Health P.E.I. says it’s adding 20 more long-term care beds in spaces across the province to address pressures on the hospital system. Some adult day programs will relocate, but the goal is to not disrupt any services. CBC’s Taylor O’Brien explains.
Deagle also said in the legislature Tuesday that he’s asked Health P.E.I. to review its plan to add 20 new long-term care beds to six homes across the Island — telling reporters outside the legislature that the province has already backtracked on those plans at one manor in Souris.
The health minister said he’s received more than 50 emails from Islanders raising concerns about turning common areas, activity spaces and places where adult day programs are offered into bedrooms.
McNeilly said he’s been hearing the same concerns.
“To look at activity rooms for long-term care facilities could be one of the worst ideas I’ve ever heard,” he said. “These are sacred places. And I think the minister heard loud and clear from the community this was not a good idea.”
Health P.E.I. came up with the plan in order to free up beds in the province’s hospitals. People in those beds who are waiting to get into a long-term care home are creating a backlog because doctors can’t admit acute-care patients into the hospital.
CBC News reached out to Health P.E.I. for more information about the plan to add long-term care beds, but did not hear back as of deadline.