LGH may borrow doctor to keep ORs running

BY ANDY BLATCHFORD

andy.blatchford@transcontinental.ca

The Lakeshore General Hospital (LGH) will be without an anesthesiologist for three days next month, forcing the institution to seek outside help to keep its operating rooms open.

The health network’s director general said the unfilled shifts are part of a tactic by the operating-room specialists to squeeze more money from Quebec.

“They want to put pressure on the government to get more money, so that’s why they’re starting to refuse shifts,” said Suzanne Turmel of the West Island Health and Social Services Centre (WIHSSC). “I think if they really cared about the hospital they would probably do all the shifts.”

For the last three weeks, operating rooms have stayed open until midnight to keep two rooms running on Mondays and Tuesdays and three from Wednesday to Friday.

But ever since a staff member retired in December, the hospital’s stable of anesthesiologists — three full-time and one part-time employee — have been working more than 100 hours a week, according to a hospital employee who spoke to

The Chronicle on condition of anonymity last week.

Turmel said the anesthesiologists could make themselves available until a solution to the dearth is found, but have been busy working at other Montreal-area hospitals where they earn more.

“If they’re so overworked why are they going elsewhere?” Turmel said. “This is a whole question of money.”

Anesthesiologists are often remunerated per act in Quebec. Turmel said that by working shifts at busy birthing hospitals, including St. Mary’s and LaSalle, the pain-management specialists earn more through epidurals and Cesarean sections.

By comparison, the LGH workload is slow, she added.

The Canadian average income for anesthesiologists is $249,000 annually, but in Quebec they earn an average of $172,000, according to a recent report in Santé Inc.

“On average they make $170,000 a year, which ain’t bad,” Turmel said. “They don’t have any overhead to pay; they don’t have any administrative expenses to pay.”

Dr. Pierre Fiset, president of the Association of Anesthesiologists of Quebec (AAQ), said it’s possible the LGH anesthesiologists’ unavailability is a pressure tactic.

“If that’s (Turmel’s) interpretation, she probably has reasons to think it is,” he said yesterday. “I cannot confirm that; I’m certainly not involved at a level of the association in such tactics. It’s certainly not something that we encourage at the level of the association.

“We’ve not been called into that type of action by the members that are practicing there (at the LGH).”

Fiset said the AAQ is in mediation with Quebec to ensure wages catch up with the Canadian average.

Turmel said McGill University promised to lend the hospital an anesthesiologist if no one is available.

Quebec’s Health Ministry has authorized the LGH to hire two more anesthesiologists, but it has been a challenge to find one, she said.

“All of the ones finishing (school) are leaving the province,” she said, adding the hospital is looking to hire an anesthesiologist from overseas.

Turmel said the hospital will have an easier time attracting the specialists once the LGH’s proposed perinatal centre is built, which aims to bring more births to the hospital.

WIHSSC vice-chairman Nick Di Tomaso said the hospital used to have as many as five or six anesthesiologists.

“There’s great competition for these people and we’re not graduating enough of them,” he said. “We just couldn’t go without an anesthesiologist, period. It just can’t happen.”

The AAQ tries to direct foreign graduates to work in areas of absolute need or remote areas, Fiset said.

“They’re not aimed at filling spots in very densely-populated and urban areas,” he said. “Traditionally, we have had no problems filling up positions in urban areas.”