The Editor,
Re: "Emergency should be better staffed," the Now letters, Jan. 27.
I was dismayed to learn that Arlene Carey had to wait six hours before seeing a doctor, even though she was taken to Surrey Memorial Hospital by ambulance at 5 a.m. on Jan. 11. But I was not surprised at all as a resident of Surrey who has taken my fouryear-old to the hospital many times in the past month.
I have not been to any other hospital since I immigrated to Surrey about five years ago and cannot comment on whether other public hospitals are performing better. But I must say that it seems the management of Surrey Memorial Hospital has been doing a very poor job of utilizing resources even though Surrey residents thought the services would be better once the multi-million expansion at Surrey Memorial Hospital was completed.
I only go to the hospital at night, after all the clinics are already closed. I could not recall a single time when I saw more than one doctor working in the emergency. I noticed there were always many nurses and other support staff; can't they see how to look for inefficiencies and bottlenecks?
As a production manager myself, I have always been an advocate at my work on how to increase efficiency by finding continuous improvement. However, whenever I go to the hospital, I always remind myself just to be patient like others and not to overexpect so that I won't get extra stress from seeing their inefficiencies when I am already stressed out being at the emergency.
I understand there are a shortage of physicians in Canada but still there is no excuse for poor-staffing at emergency. The top management should consider training and utilizing more physician assistants and nurse practitioners to take over some of physicians' tasks if the government is not willing to provide many opportunities for more foreign doctors to be trained and licensed here.
Status quo is not good enough.
Tony A.,
Surrey