GLACE BAY, N.S. — Physicians who withdrew from providing care for in-patients at the Glace Bay Hospital over a pay inequity with doctors providing similar care in Sydney are returning to provide the service, meaning 25-30 beds will reopen.
Nova Scotia Health Authority spokesperson Carla Adams confirmed the development Monday.
There are 44 inpatient acute care beds in total at Glace Bay Hospital. The remaining beds had physicians providing in-patient coverage, so those beds have been in use and will continue to be in use.
In November, Gary Ernest, the president of Doctors Nova Scotia, said in an interview with the Cape Breton Post that he hoped there may be enough in the new contract for doctors to entice physicians back into providing in-patient coverage at community hospitals.
Ernest said the community hospital in-patient (CHIP) model has been made more flexible, allowing each hospital to determine, within the funding envelope provided, what works best for it.
The domino effect created by the doctors withdrawing from providing in-patient service meant that more patients needing to be admitted were sent to the Cape Breton Regional Hospital emergency department, exacerbating an overstressed situation there. Dr. Margaret Fraser, the president of the Cape Breton Medical Staff Association, last month described the situation at the regional ER as “dangerously overcrowded" every day.
Last month, another doctor had signalled his intention to withdraw from providing in-patient coverage to newly admitted in Glace Bay. At the time, the NSHA confirmed the departure but declined to discuss it, saying it was working on a solution and may have more to share in the coming weeks.
That left three physicians providing in-patient care at the Glace Bay Hospital currently, but only two continuing to admit new patients.
The decision by some doctors to withdraw from providing in-patient coverage at community hospitals due to a pay inequity has been an issue locally in Glace Bay and North Sydney. Without the in-patient coverage, there has been additional pressure placed on the emergency department at the regional hospital.
The pay inequity issue arose after the introduction of hospitalists — family doctors who work out of hospitals, seeing patients who have been admitted that don't have family doctors, and have a maximum number of patients they see. The province offered the hospitalist line to family doctors serving regional hospitals, but not those working in community hospitals. Doctors have said that ties the hands of people working to recruit new physicians to community hospitals.
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