is sounding the alarm over what he calls the town’s deteriorating health care situation, saying half of the population has lost access to a family doctor in the past year.that the town west of Edmonton typically has 15 physicians. The town of about 10,000 people is currently down to six doctors, some of whom work part-time.“Because of the system not doing succession planning, it’s put us in a situation where we’ve lost over half our physician complement in a very short period of time.
“We need to advocate for our health-care system… We are in a unique and we’re calling it a crisis situation.”The shortage has forced some residents to drive upwards of four hours to walk-in clinics in larger centres like Edmonton for things like prescription refills or blood work requisitions, with no guarantee they will be seen due to long wait times.
“Our physicians are working as much as humanly possible, but they just don’t have the time to spend in the clinic because all of these other spaces require their attention.” “Our doctors can focus on doctoring and we can hopefully stabilize our primary care, and thus the remainder of our medical system in Hinton while we work on attracting and bringing in younger and new health care practitioners,” Nissen said.