SASKATOON - Rural and Remote Health Minister Lori Carr is defending the use of virtual doctors in rural hospitals in the wake of NDP criticism of the practice.
Speaking to reporters in Saskatoon, Carr acknowledged virtual physicians were being placed into communities that “are having staffing shortages.”
But Carr emphasized “the entire goal is to actually have physicians, nurse practitioners, registered nurses in all of those facilities. This is actually a stopgap at this point in time, and it has been working to fill in that gap.”
Carr's comments were response to attacks by NDP associate health critic Keith Jorgenson, who has come out swinging against the use of virtual doctors, particularly in emergency rooms. Jorgenson has particularly accused the government of turning to virtual physicians who provide care by webcam or phone, instead of recruiting actual doctors to be there on location.
“Instead of hiring more doctors, the Sask Party seems perfectly fine relying on virtual doctors. That doesn’t cut it in emergency situations where minutes count,” said Jorgenson in a statement.
Carr emphasized that virtual care was "definitely another option for those facilities" where there might be a registered nurse and an emergency medical technician present who are capable of using a virtual physician, but no doctor on site. Those health care professionals could then pick up the phone and call the doctor, and sometimes there is a visual piece to it as well.
“That keeps that ER open for the time being so that we do not have to have the service disruption,” said Carr, who pointed to the number of ERs that were able to stay open as a result.
“Over 16 months, we prevented 2,700 service disruptions because of the virtual physician program.”
As for Jorgenson, he took his "Critical Condition" health care tour to Rosetown, Biggar, Kindersley, and Kerrobert on Tuesday and was set to tour Arcola, Estevan, Oxbow, Radville and Redvers on Wednesday.
With files from Jon Perez
