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Alta. Doctor Says Her Patient Was Refused Treatment Because He Was From Sask.

Posted on: Tuesday, 4 March 2008, 21:00 CST

By THE CANADIAN PRESS

MEDICINE HAT, Alta. - A southern Alberta doctor says a high-risk patient was refused the surgery he needed in Calgary simply because he was from Saskatchewan - and ended up dying while waiting for care.

But the Calgary Health Region is refuting Dr. Alison Cameron's claims, saying the patient's home province had nothing to do with how the case was handled by the system.

The case involves an elderly patient from Leader, Sask., about 30 kilometres from the boundary with Alberta.

The man was brought to the hospital in Medicine Hat, Alta., with a broken hip and Cameron said he had suffered a heart attack after the initial injury.

It's common for people who live along the Saskatchewan boundary to be brought to nearby Medicine Hat for treatment. When cases are too serious for Medicine Hat to handle, they are generally referred to Calgary, Cameron said.

The broken hip could have been treated in Medicine Hat, but the heart attack complicated the surgery, so Cameron said she arranged for a transfer to Calgary through the Southern Alberta Referral Centre.

After speaking with a specialist in Calgary who agreed to take the case, Cameron said the centre called back about four hours later and told her that the man needed to be transferred to either Regina or Saskatoon.

"Their reasoning was that there were people from Alberta that were waiting for beds so they weren't going to give a bed to someone from Saskatchewan," she said.

In the meantime, the man's heart condition worsened. He was put into intensive care in the Medicine Hat hospital and died the next day.

Cameron said there is no guarantee that the Calgary transfer would have saved the man's life.

"Likely the same thing would have happened had he been in Calgary just because it was a very serious heart attack," she said.

"I guess what I'm hoping is that this would never happen again that someone would be refused treatment simply because they were from Saskatchewan."

But Don Stewart, spokesman with the Calgary Health Region, said decisions on referrals are based on the patient getting the quickest treatment possible.

The orthopedic section in Calgary was at capacity and there would have been a delay in getting the man treatment, so that's why the recommendation was made to move him to Regina or Saskatoon, which is closer to Leader than Calgary.

He said, in this case, the region thought they were dealing only with an orthopedic referral and didn't know about the cardiac problems.

"The Calgary Health Region was contacted about providing support to a patient that had a hip fracture," Stewart said. "That is it. That is what we worked with."

Cameron doesn't buy that the region didn't know about her patient's heart condition. That was the reason she was referring him to Calgary in the first place.

Under the Canada Health Act, Canadians have their medically necessary health costs covered no matter what province they live in. These costs are usually covered by reciprocal billing agreements between the provinces.

The Calgary Health Region did 1,300 in-patient surgeries for non-Albertans last year and 750 day procedures, Stewart said.

- By Tim Cook in Regina

Source: Canadian Press

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