Banff-Cochrane MLA Ron Casey indicated on Jan. 18 that Alberta Health Services (AHS) will rescind the memo sent to nurse practitioners telling them their positions at the Cochrane and Airdrie urgent care centres would be terminated.
“(The memo) should never have been sent out,” Casey said, adding that the letter had caused confusion for all involved.
For what is now being described as a change to its staffing model, AHS has remained mostly mute with regards to last week’s announcement that it would terminate the position of nurse practitioner in Cochrane and Airdrie.
Casey also said that he had been informed by AHS that there would be a 60-day evaluation period to conduct a review of service levels at both the Cochrane and Airdrie urgent care centres.
Also concerned with the news, Cochrane mayor Truper McBride took time to search for answers as to whether the loss of nurse practitioners from the community’s Urgent Care Centre would hinder health services at the facility.
“From a service-delivery perspective, there is no impact to Cochrane,” McBride said AHS assured him, if the nurse practitioners were to be transferred elsewhere. “What they are looking at is a change in the staffing model that would actually potentially have more doctors ending up in Cochrane and the nurses being distributed throughout the system more.”
McBride did confirm that there was a ‘rumor’ that the nurses in question were being ‘released,’ but that he could not substantiate that claim, as AHS did inform him that the nurses would be moved to other locations in the province where there was a need.
The rumor that these nurses were being terminated stemmed from the now-rescinded memo released by AHS, sent to urgent care staff by Barb Shellian, director for Bow Valley community and rural health, which stated, “One of the measures that will be implemented for urgent care is the elimination of the nurse practitioner positions for Cochrane and Airdrie.”
The notice indicated that the termination of said position would be effective March 31 of this year and that the measure was “simply and unfortunately related to budget.”
The letter went on to state that efforts would be made to find jobs for those impacted by the effort, and that physician colleagues at Cochrane and Airdrie’s urgent care centres would be filling shifts left vacant by the termination of the nurse practitioners.
Several efforts to contact AHS resulted in a lone media statement and no direct answers to specific questions addressed to multiple staff members.
The statement addressed a meeting held in Airdrie on Jan. 17 between AHS and those being affected by the nurse practitioner’s termination.
“AHS is reviewing the process around decisions announced earlier,” the release read. “We have shared those perspectives with nurse practitioners and physicians, and we understand their concerns and position.”
James Finstad, AHS communications director for the Calgary zone, said the media statement released would be the ‘only comment AHS would offer in relation to the internal discussions around how best to utilize the nurse practitioner positions’ and that as of Jan. 18, no final decision has yet been made.
Finstad also pointed out that the nurses potentially being removed from Cochrane and Airdrie amounted to 2.8 full-time positions, 1.4 in Cochrane and 1.4 in Airdrie.
McBride said he had learned that the Alberta Health minister’s office was upset by the way its announcement of the terminations had ‘come down,’ and that there were ‘high-level discussions’ being conducted to determine why this move was presented to the public in the manner it was.
“There could have been backtracking,” he said. “All I know right now is that I am being promised there is no service delivery impact and the model would likely see more doctors at the Urgent Care Centre.”
Casey concurred that at the end of the day, service will not be negatively affected in Cochrane or Airdrie and that nurse practitioners would continue to play a huge role in health care in Alberta, as they are ‘imbedded and part of the structure.’
McBride pledged that he would monitor the situation as it moved forward to ensure there is in fact no reduction in service levels at the Urgent Care Centre.
“It is important for Cochrane to make sure we’re in front of this one,” he said, adding that, although he understood the need for the government to be fiscally responsible, if service did suffer he would take action at that time.
“I really believe that governments at any level have to be able to look at staffing models to save costs and make sure we’re providing services as efficiently as possible, so I don’t have concerns at this point and I have to trust that what AHS and the government are saying right now.”
Casey echoed McBride’s sentiment, saying that it is AHS’s responsibility to ensure its services are delivered in a cost effective manner, and that ‘you would hope they assess how they deliver health services on a continuing basis.’
McBride said he believed this issue had become more of a ‘media thing’ than a service delivery issue for Cochrane.
“At this point,” McBride reiterated, “I don’t see a reason for concern.”
