Alberta’s not too long ago introduced effort so as to add doctor shifts to assist triage sufferers in crowded emergency rooms has been delayed.
This system was to have began over the weekend.
The president of the Alberta Medical Affiliation says docs wish to take part however there are points to be labored out together with over pay, billing, legal responsibility and paperwork.
Dr. Brian Wirzba stated Monday he’s optimistic a deal might be reached quickly between the affiliation’s part of emergency medication and the federal government to resolve precisely how the job will probably be structured.
“I might hope that perhaps by the tip of this week or subsequent week we might begin seeing a few of these positions being stuffed,” he stated in an interview.
Wirzba stated the shifts are a short lived “Band-Assist” to supply help for emergency room colleagues and handle the issues of sufferers who’re ready “far too lengthy.”
“It clearly doesn’t repair all the acute care disaster, however it would present some profit.”
Hospitals Minister Matt Jones introduced the brand new triage liaison doctor roles final month after the dying of a person who waited for hours for care in an Edmonton hospital.
Prashant Sreekumar, who was 44, died at Edmonton’s Gray Nuns Group Hospital on Dec. 22, 2025.
His household stated he had been there for practically eight hours with chest pains and growing blood stress.
Premier Danielle Smith’s United Conservative authorities has ordered a judge-led inquiry into the person’s dying.
The brand new physician triage shifts are meant for docs to assist velocity up affected person assessments and diagnostic work, and in some circumstances start offering care within the ready room.
They had been initially anticipated to start Sunday at six of the province’s busiest hospitals, with three different amenities becoming a member of in September.
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Wirzba stated that after the minister’s announcement, the federal government reached out to physicians, however its proposal was based mostly on an “older methodology” that raised issues docs wished addressed earlier than they’d signal on.
Kyle Warner, press secretary to Jones, stated in an announcement Monday they had been working to launch the function as rapidly as potential to enhance look after sufferers and households.
“The work to recruit for the triage doctor liaison function is ongoing. This function will present much-needed help to a few of the busiest emergency departments in Edmonton and Calgary,” he stated.
“We are going to proceed to work with the Alberta Medical Affiliation and physicians to make sure they will present the most effective look after Albertans, when and the place they want it.”
The positions are anticipated to be staffed with present physicians and can add an extra two shifts per day, seven days every week.
Warner confirmed Alberta has by no means had a provincially co-ordinated everlasting doctor triage mannequin in place, however it received’t be the primary time the concept has been tried on the entrance traces.
A 2007 examine of a pilot mission on the College of Alberta Hospital in Edmonton concluded that triage liaison doctor shifts confirmed the potential to shorten how lengthy sufferers spent within the emergency room and the variety of sufferers leaving with out being seen.
Warner stated that on the time, no everlasting funding supply was out there to proceed that program.
“Acute Care Alberta is assured that this provincewide funding will ship related advantages for sufferers and the well being system,” Warner wrote in an announcement final week.
Heather Smith, head of the United Nurses of Alberta, has stated the triage liaison place possible received’t repair all that ails the province’s emergency departments, based mostly on her members’ previous expertise.
“It didn’t do something to cope with the true difficulty, which is capability past the emergency division,” she stated following the federal government’s announcement final month.
Smith additionally stated some issues have modified since 2007.
She stated a variety of the duties physicians had been doing in emergency rooms previously are actually a part of protocols that nurses perform, and triage liaison docs will nonetheless be restricted by the necessity for nursing workers to assist them.
Sarah Hoffman, the Opposition NDP well being critic, stated Monday it seems docs aren’t clambering to take the positions as a result of the shortage of emergency room capability hasn’t been totally addressed.
“I’ve spoken to a lot of emergency physicians to say, ‘Are you going to maneuver into that function?’ They usually stated, ‘for what level?’” stated Hoffman.
“If there aren’t beds to have the ability to admit sufferers into, then it feels to a variety of physicians like that is an train in communications and never really in placing any new sources into the entrance traces.”
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