Town of Hinton declares health-care crisis over doctor shortage

Doctor Lee Jones's workload is growing exponentially with everybody leaving. It's also sent several hundred kids my way. The family physician has been practicing in Hinton for 17 years. A wave of retirements by his colleagues has left the doctors still working in the town struggling to fill the gap. I've hit one in the morning before I finish notes some days just to be back here at 7:45 the next morning, catch up on the labs, the X-rays, ultrasounds, all stuff like that before. Start rolling clinic again at 10. For a community of around 10,000 people and a patient base extending outside the municipality, they say it's too much to cover. Our town went from having 15 doctors to what's now effectively 6 full time equivalent physicians. Mayor Nicholas Nissan figures around half the town has lost its primary care physician. It's why he and the rest of council decided to declare a local healthcare crisis. We're in a situation where if we lose another doctor or two. Our entire system becomes unsustainable. Says the declaration doesn't come with any powers for getting more government support. It's being used as a communication and advocacy tool. It's time for change. We need help and we can't do business as usual anymore. Nissan says he's talked with Health Minister Adriana LaGrange about the problem. He's interested in the possibility of using nurse practitioners to take some of the workload off physicians. Not everything needs to be done by a doctor. There's a lot of things that could be done by somebody else. In a statement, LaGrange tells Global News the province is working to fix healthcare problems in rural Alberta. She says Alberta Health Services recently recruited one doctor to work in Hinton and is trying to get five more physicians in the town, hoping sustainable relief comes soon to stabilize the uncertain situation. Eric Bay, Global News.