June 15, 1998
DOCKING SERVICESCOUNTRY MDS EYE ANOTHER WALKOUT
At the same time, the province's obstetricians are promising to further slow services if keeping patients in hospital longer doesn't achieve results in their call for a fee increase. About 350 of the 500 rural doctors plan to close their offices again for the day on June 25 and will finalize the details in a teleconference tonight, said Dr. Peter Lindsay, president of the Alberta Section of Rural Medicine. Lindsay said the walkout should be similar to last Monday's job action with doctors closing their offices. Designated doctors will see patients with emergencies. "We clearly feel this is an important issue," he added. "The question is whether there will be escalation and when." The rural physicians say they require $21 an hour for emergency on-call services. Meanwhile, obstetricians started keeping new mothers in hospital for two days or more on Thursday, a move expected to cause maternity wards to overflow. About 25 babies are born each day in city hospitals. The obstetricians are hoping the provincial government will get the message when they see the additional cost of keeping patients longer, said Dr. Nan Schuurmans of the Alberta Society of Obstetricians and Gynecologists. She expects the Grey Nuns Hospital to feel the effect of the job action first because it had to open an additional ward to accommodate an unrelated surge of maternity patients prior to the job action. Schuurmans said the next provincewide meeting for obstetricians will be held in Red Deer in July to determine whether keeping patients longer and refusing to see new patients is enough to get the government to respond. Obstetricians stopped taking new patients May 15. "Other job action would be more serious for us and the public," she said, refusing to specify. "We want to make sure we have them well planned out." Edmonton's maternity hospitals have not yet felt any hardship from the city's 36 obstetricians keeping patients longer, said Donna Angus, Capital Health Authority spokesman. She said she expects the initial effects to start being felt today. The obstetricians are asking for a fee increase from $277.78 per delivery to $455. Neither Health Minister Halvar Jonson nor Alberta Medical Association officials could be reached for comment yesterday. Next Story: MCCLUNG FOLKS TIRED OF SAME OLD SONG Previous Story: BETTER LATE THAN NEVER AS CROATIANS MISS LIVE BROADCAST
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