Medicine Hat Regional Hospital

By Teagan Rasche

More patients and fewer staff

City ER doc says vaccine mandate from AHS overdue

Sep 1, 2021 | 2:54 PM

MEDICINE HAT. AB – All Alberta Health Services employees and contracted health care providers are now required to be fully vaccinated by Oct. 31.

The decision was announced yesterday by AHS as a way to protect vulnerable and immunocompromised Albertans, and frontline health-care workers.

The move is something emergency room physician Dr. Paul Parks has been advocating a long time for.

Parks, who works at the Medicine Hat Regional Hospital, says he is strongly in favour of the decision and believes it was long overdue.

“Things are tough and are going to get a lot tougher,” Parks said. “We are just at the start of this wave, we’ll care for the sickest the best we can as we always do but honestly, things like this vaccine mandate and every Albertan that can and is eligible to get vaccinated will go a long, long way to help us.”

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AHS says some exemptions will be made for for workers with legitimate reasons such as medical issues. Similar policies exist at health-care facilities in Ontario, Manitoba and B.C.

While Parks is happy about the mandatory vaccines, he does have other COVID-19 concerns. He says there’s way more patients now who are also much sicker, and there’s fewer staff to take care of them.

“In previous waves, we had staffing where we could surge and increase our capacities and have more staff come in to increase our beds,” Parks said. “So now at this point in the fourth wave, we have physical beds and spaces we could use if and when we will need them, we don’t have the people to man them.”

AHS says the ICU at the hospital was at capacity on Aug. 26, but right now, four COVID patients are receiving intensive care, with 26 others in hospital.