P.E.I. doctor signs joint letter to prime minister on health-care crisis

Patients and health-care workers on P.E.I. are suffering, and the federal government needs to do more, said the head of the Medical Society of Prince Edward Island. 

Dr. Krista Cassell signed a joint letter from all provincial and territorial medical societies this week calling on Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's government to commit to more health-care funding. 

"We just can't keep doing what we always used to do. We need innovation and we need change in our system," Cassell told CBC News: Compass host Louise Martin. 

Cassell said she is worried about the tens of thousands of patients on P.E.I. who don't have access to a family doctor and therefore may have difficulty accessing testing or specialists. 

"I've been in medicine for 20 years now, practicing here on P.E.I., and I can certainly say that this is the worst that I've seen it," she said. 

Despite the challenges, Cassell said she feels that the government here on P.E.I. is listening more to the concerns of health-care workers. 

"We're often working shoulder-to-shoulder with people at senior leadership positions or deputy ministers on various projects, and it's much easier to share our ideas and our experience with them, which is not what happens in larger provinces," said Cassell. 

The society has also partnered with the provincial health-care system in the last two years to undertake physician leadership training, she said. 

"It's been very important because it's taught us how to engage with the system, how to get our ideas out there, how to affect change, and to allow us to work with the system in a much more efficient, effective way."

Studies show that doctors all across the country have high levels of burnout, including here on the Island, said Cassell. 

"[The society] is heavily involved in the physician wellness space. We offer one-to-one coaching, we offer peer support, we offer a physician wellness program, and we're hopeful that that's having an impact here on P.E.I." 

Funding alone can't solve the health-care issues, said Cassell, and recent innovations on P.E.I. such as patient medical homes are a way of thinking outside the box. 

"That's a place to go where the patient is known, where they have access to the right provider for the right care at the right time. That doesn't necessarily mean more physicians, it may mean other providers," she said.