Dr. Albert Harmse, acting North Zone Medical Director for AHS (Alberta Health Services) and a St. Paul doctor, said the community has nothing to fear from the recent announcement that a local general surgeon is relocating to Cold Lake.
In an interview with LakelandTODAY.ca on Friday afternoon, Harmse said that while Dr. Iftikhar Ahmad is taking up residence in Cold Lake, he will continue to provide surgical services in St. Paul, in addition to Cold Lake and, at times possibly in Bonnyville, with the surgical list at the St. Therese Health Centre remaining basically unchanged.
“There is going to be very little impact on St. Paul. The biggest thing is maybe the after hours, it will depend where he is. If he’s still in St. Paul when he’s called for an emergency, he will deal with it from here. If he’s in Cold Lake, then the case will be referred there but it will have very little impact on what is going on at the moment,” Dr. Harmse said.
Asked if there was an intent by AHS to reduce the surgery schedule in St. Paul, Dr. Harmse denied such a move was afoot but did say it stands to reason a reduction may occur based solely on the fact that some surgery currently being done in St. Paul is for Cold Lake cases.
“There might be a reduction to a certain extent because you must remember he does surgery on cases coming from Cold Lake. He was the referral point for what we call Area 8 (St. Paul, Bonnyville, Cold Lake), three hospitals plus Elk Point. What might happen is that cases from Cold Lake would rather be done in Cold Lake than here."
During a typical week at St. Therese Health Centre there is two days of general surgery and one or two days of endoscopy, depending on the demand at any given time, Dr. Harmse explained.
"The St. Paul list will basically remain the same. There might be say one reduction in a two-week cycle, but he will do surgery a day a week in Cold Lake. He will still do all his responsibilities in St. Paul and I think there is a chance he might still put in another day of work in Bonnyville as well. It will enable him to do surgery service for this corridor. “
Dr. Francis Adebayo, Chief of Staff at the St. Paul Hospital, cited “a lot of miscommunication” as being behind community and physician concern over Dr. Ahmad’s move. In a brief response to LakelandTODAY.ca enquiries, Dr. Adebayo stated, “Information was sent out in a way that most of us were not aware and they are trying to address it.” He said he planned to meet with AHS operations personnel and doctors to discuss it.
Concern arose over surgical services in St. Paul after an internal memorandum to area physicians at the end of July welcomed Dr. Ahmad to the Cold Lake Health Centre. Dr. Harmse described the memorandum, sent out on AHS letterhead, as being both unfortunate and premature as it provided misleading information suggesting that recruitment would soon commence for a new general surgeon in St. Paul. However, there is no such plan in place, he said.
“That email was retracted but you know the retraction doesn’t usually have the same impact as the initial one. In the initial document that went out, it was stated that in the future there would be recruitment done for a surgeon for St. Paul and, at the moment, that is not on the horizon. The fact of the matter is there is enough surgery in the area. But to use Dr. Ahmad optimally I think this is not such a bad idea that he moves there.”
St. Paul Mayor Maureen Miller said she was able to confirm Friday “Dr. Ahmad will be working one day per week in Cold Lake and we will be bringing in a visiting specialist to provide varied services.”
There’s no word on what “varied services” involves.
“Obviously staffing within AHS is out of our scope as a municipality,” Miller said. “We did reach out to assure services were maintained and ease the anxiety of concern with the community.”
Dr. Harmse stressed it is important the St. Paul community understand that Dr. Ahmad’s move to Cold Lake is a personal choice. However, as Dr. Harmse sees it, professionally the move makes sense on both a practical and technical level.
“He might have a little bit of a different spectrum of conditions that he can do surgeries for there. I think their OR is also equipped differently so it will make a few more things possible for him.”
The fact that the CT scanner for the region is also located in Cold Lake is likely an important factor too, Dr. Harmse said, noting that frequently it’s needed to assist decision making when it comes to surgical cases.
Dr. Harmse dispelled any concerns over the possible impact to three other St. Paul doctors who, in addition to their general practices, also provide anesthetic services for Dr. Ahmad’s surgeries at the local hospital. He said there’s no reason to think they will see substantially fewer hours in the OR.
“No, the need for them basically remains the same … The afterhours anesthetics might be a little bit impacted in the amount of patients that they do. But we really don’t do that many after hour cases anyway, so it won’t have a big effect on them . . . St. Paul will still be a big focus of him. I don’t see that the workload will reduce to such an extent that it will warrant the anesthetists to leave.”
Dr. Harmse said overall he is “not afraid for the surgical service in St. Paul.”
