Four doctors poised to walk out of a senior-focused Victoria clinic next month say they requested an emergency meeting with the Vancouver Island Health Authority but have not had a response.
VIHA, which operates the Health Point Care Clinic — housed within the Hillside Seniors Health Centre on Hillside Avenue — notified 1,800 patients in February that they would lose the clinic’s four part-time family doctors effective May 31.
The four doctors tendered their resignations after they were unable to reach an agreement with VIHA on the clinic’s overhead costs and patient loads.
VIHA has proposed that the doctors pay a greater portion of their overhead costs — which are subsidized by the health authority — and increase their patient load.
The health authority says an external review showed doctors should increase their patient rosters — which, they argue, would increase physicians’ incomes — and reduce the clinic’s waiting list.
VIHA also maintains that it is within the doctors’ means to pay a greater share of their fixed overhead costs.
The doctors say they responded to VIHA’s requests and have found efficiencies, but that the increased overhead costs would substantially reduce their incomes. Taking on more seniors with complex and chronic conditions would reduce care for existing patients, they say.
Doctors Nena Edmunds, Fiona Manning, Tess Hammett and Jill Norris tendered their resignations Feb. 22.
Amid rallies by patients and calls for mediation, the doctors say they have reached out to the health authority.
“As of last week, the doctors asked VIHA that if they were interested in resolving this, the physicians would be willing to have an urgent meeting with decision-makers,” Norris said. “We haven’t heard anything back.”
VIHA spokeswoman Sarah Plank said there is a willingness to talk.
“We have had discussions with the physicians,” she said.
“There hasn’t been a resolution.”
The health authority said it asked the physicians to pay an increase of 5.5 per cent for the clinic’s overhead — rent, utilities, and the cost of two registered nurses, three medical office assistants and a nurse practitioner — bringing their share to 23.2 per cent. Those numbers have decreased slightly due to the elimination of the HST.
But the doctors say the 5.5 per cent figure is low and not “an accurate representation of the situation.”
VIHA has pledged to replace the four doctors, and says others have expressed interest in the positions, though none have been hired.
Charles Meadow, an 83-year-old patient with Parkinson’s disease, arthritis and asthma, says he’s disheartened.
“It sounds to me as if it’s a standoff; [VIHA’s] not interested in giving an inch and the doctors aren’t interested in coming back [under that scenario],” Meadow said.
“What’s going to happen is people like me will have no one. We’ll have a locum who doesn’t know me and hasn’t heard of my problems. … It will be a disaster.”
Patient Suzanne Stewart, 68, a cancer survivor, can’t understand why VIHA and the doctors aren’t negotiating to find a solution.
“I am just hoping somewhere along the way VIHA will wake up to the reality it’s abandoning almost 2,000 people who will be left with what I consider a walk-in clinic.”
A patient group called Save Health Point is hosting a rally in front of the clinic at 1454 Hillside Ave. today from 10 to 11 a.m.
