Nearly 500 km northwest of Thunder Bay, sits Lake of the Woods District Hospital in Kenora, with an emergency department that is bursting at its seams. In the isolated 74-bed facility, 12 physicians are responsible for the emergency care of the local community, seasonal cottage-goers, as well as 11 regional and Indigenous communities. 

In the past year, the 12-bed emergency room (ER) in Kenora has been perpetually short staffed. As an example, the week before August 1, there were still 20 shifts to be filled for the month, and hope hung on locums (temporary doctors) being secured. But with the next closest emergency rooms in Dryden or Winnipeg— it is not an option to close. When patients are facing an emergency, driving hours to the next hospital can be the difference between life and death.  

Dr. Sarah Giles, the only full-time emergency room physician at the hospital, describes a recent situation when patients arrived with severe illness including a brain bleed, vital signs absent and a blocked airway – all arrived during one shift. If the hospital’s ER had been closed when those patients needed help, it’s likely none would have survived. 

Dr. Giles is a family physician who, prior to the pandemic, used to practice full scope, clinic and hospital-based care. In the emergency room, she explains that patients are often complex, marginalized and have trouble accessing care.  

With 13 emergency physicians at the hospital, most of whom also have family practices to attend to, the situation is extremely fragile, and staffing is reliant on temporary doctors (locums) to pick up about half the shifts each month. Still, there remain approximately 40-50 unfilled shifts each month that the ER doctors scramble to fill.  

She is thankful for her colleagues, who she refers to as ‘world-class physicians’ and ‘superheroes’ but also knows that there is a lot of work to be done to create a workplace where people will stay.  

This situation is tenuous and unsustainable, but it doesn’t have to be this way. A rapid response from government and healthcare leaders could help to stabilize the current crisis. The Ontario College of Family Physicians (OCFP) and the OMA Section on General & Family Practice (SGFP) are calling for: 

• Immediately enhance locum program supports to ensure temporary doctors are available where they are most needed right now. Longer-term rethinking of how locums are used in the North is necessary. 
• Urgently fund recruitment programs to bring new physicians to the North. 
• Retention is critical. Implement a comprehensive strategy and ensure positive working conditions to retain the remaining physicians in the North. 
• Provide immediate peer support for family doctors working in these difficult conditions to maintain their mental health and wellbeing. 

Read our full statement here.