B.C. downplaying severity of healthcare crisis: Surrey Memorial Hospital doctor

Another Lower Mainland doctor is voicing concerns about the crumbling healthcare system and taking direct aim at the government and health authority in charge.

Dr. Roopjeet Kahlon is an internist and the president of the Medical Staff Association at Surrey Memorial Hospital (SMH). She is pushing back against recent messaging from both the province and the Fraser Health Authority (FHA) which is not calling the situation a crisis.

Kahlon disagrees and thinks the public deserves transparency, so they know what’s really happening on the frontlines.

“It’s in direct conflict with what we’re experiencing as frontline healthcare providers on the ground and what our patients are experiencing,” explained Kahlon. “The physicians and the patients have one experience, and the leadership is conveying. It’s not that they don’t understand the challenges, but I think our concern is they’re downplaying the extent of the problem.”

“We share your distress. We are just as angry and upset.”

Kahlon is also lifting the veil on what someone, arriving at the Emergency Room at SMH, can expect.

“You walk in through the emergency department as a patient [and] you are seen by the emergency room physician. They see the patients, they try to understand whether they need to be admitted, if they have decided the patient needs admission then they contact an admitting service… that’s our hospitalist colleagues.”

Kahlon says that’s where there is a major gap in care, in addition to the critical shortage of doctors and nurses.

“The vast majority of patients, it’s the hospitalists who are contacted and what’s supposed to happen at that point, is that patient’s care is supposed to be assumed by the admitting service, so the emergency room doctor is free.

“Because we have a shortage of hospitalist physicians that are available to the emergency department to see those patients, those patients could be waiting 24-48 hours and that first 48 hours is the critical period where you can have a chance in clinical status.”

She goes on to say because of the lack of hospitalists, ER doctors are shouldering that care while maintaining their regular duties.

Kahlon explains the healthcare issues being seen today are the result of years of chronic underfunding and she wants any officials responsible for funding, to step up.

She and her colleagues share the community’s distress.

“As a physician, it causes us significant distress to see our patients suffering in front of us. You’ve got physicians trained to provide care, but you haven’t provided us any of the tools that we need to do that, and we see the consequences. We see the emotion on our patient’s faces, we deal with the family members. The responsibility isn’t on the community, it’s on the government.”

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Kahlon says the three leading causes of death are stroke, heart attack, and trauma and says SMH doesn’t have the ability to treat them because of a lack of specialized services.

“The South Asian community is at high risk for these diseases, we know that in the medical community. The need for these specialized services is even more acutely felt at SMH because of the population this hospital serves.”

Kahlon says there are deficiencies across the healthcare system and doesn’t think they’ll be fixed overnight. She adds the first thing that needs to happen is for the government, health authority officials, and all stakeholders to agree on the extent of the problem.

She says an urgent summit held this week south of the Fraser River to come up with a fix was a step in the right direction, but more work is needed.

“There is the desire from all members to come up with solutions, I think where the physicians feel frustrated is when we try to relay the severity of the situation and our health leaders don’t back that up, don’t support us.”

Kahlon thinks solutions will surface, just not right away.