No changes to urgent treatment funding: VIHA

The Flying Shingle
Monday, December 6 2010

There will be no change in the kind of funding the Vancouver Island Health Authority (VIHA) provides for an “urgent treatment room” once a permanent community clinic is built, according to VIHA Communications Director Shannon Marshall.

Marshall, who responded last week to a number of questions from The Shingle added: “… it’s important to understand that (the clinic has) an urgent treatment room NOT an urgent care center or emergency room. (The urgent treatment room) provides services consistent with those that can be provided in any GPs office but because supplies for sutures, wound care etc. are expensive we are helping to underwrite those costs”.

Marshall said: “Emergency care is required in a situation that poses an immediate risk to health or life. The emergency department is a hospital department that provides initial treatment to patients with a broad spectrum of illnesses and injuries, some of which may be life-threatening and requiring immediate attention”.

“Urgent care”, Marshall said, “provides response to an illness or injury that will not cause further disability or death if not treated immediately but requires professional attention to prevent it from developing into a greater threat”.

At the Advisory Planning Commission meeting at the Community Hall on Wednesday, Gabriola Health Care Society (GHCS) President Brenda Fowler further clarified the differences saying that very specific definitions attach to those words. “… so for instance”, she said, “when you go to an emergency room in a hospital you’ve got very sophisticated equipment … and you have trained staff onsite who know how to work the machines and are delivering the responses, and coverage is 24/7”. She said VIHA and GHCS are “very clear” with each other “we will never have an emergency room. We cannot with our population ever support an emergency room”.

Marshall said that doctors are responsible for their own patients 24/7, but they are not responsible for dealing with medical emergencies for people who are not their patients. She said the Medical On Call Availability Program (MOCAP), which the on-call doctors on Gabriola receive, provides a stipend to physicians “for being available to provide urgent/emergent care for new patients, or those who do not have a (doctor)”.

The on-call doctors on Gabriola “participate in a level 2 MOCAP”, Marshall said. According the MOCAP Policy Framework (2001) this requires “… availability by telephone within 15 minutes, and available to be on-site within two hours”, and pays “$165,000 per annum for 24/7/52 coverage”.

Marshall said VIHA also funds the members of the Integrated Health Network team. She said the team “… works with 29 physician practices, including both practices on Gabriola. The team is comprised of a nurse, a dietitian, a social worker and a medical office assistant. The team comes to the island once every two weeks to work with patients who live with multiple chronic conditions”.

Marshall said the medical supplies VIHA provides for the urgent treatment room cost about $6,000 per year. The Integrated Health Network “has been provided through a one year contract with GHCS that totals $12,000 per year”, she said.
www.FlyingShingle.com/cgi-bin/coranto/viewnews.cgi?id=20101206463207955203