Dr. Garbutt said patients, not physicians, are the ones who suffer when physicians’ advocacy is denied or met with resistance.
“Patients ultimately pay the price for dysfunction in the system,” he said.
“Somebody has to pay the price for intimidation, otherwise what it boils down to is they get away with it and patients suffer.”
He said he is glad to see the report confirm the claims of physicians but that the real work will be fixing the problem.
“The question now, of course, is what happens afterward - how do we fix the culture?” said Dr. Garbutt.
“The best organizations empower everybody within the organization to be as good as they can be - too many people in Alberta Health Services empower you to be as good as they want you to be.”
“They should be empowering their people, not intimidating them.”
Alberta Liberal leader Raj Sherman said in a press release last week that the HQCA should be providing regular reports to the Legislative Assembly and not to Cabinet, in order to help solve the problem.
“It is clear that we must fix the health care system,” said Sherman.
“Our health care system has been broken… and it must be examined from all angles.”
The Province announced last week that it has accepted and will immediately begin work on the 21 recommendations of the report, including striking two task forces – one on health system governance and the other on role clarity with respect to the College of Physicians and Surgeons – and a full review of Emergency Medical Services.
A public inquiry into allegations of queue jumping will also be conducted, in order to determine whether improper preferential access to publicly funded health services is occurring and if evidence thereof exists.
The HQCA report, entitled “Review on the Quality of Care and Safety of Patients Requiring Access to Emergency Department Care and Cancer Surgery and the Role and Process of Physician Advocacy”, is available on the HQCA’s website,
hqca.ca.
