The Alberta government says its long-promised program to ease the burden on emergency rooms is ready after eight months of contract negotiations. Last January, Matt Jones, the minister for hospital and surgical health services at the time, promised new triage liaison physicians, or TLPs, after the death of 44-year-old Prashanth Sreekumar, who died waiting hours for treatment in Edmonton’s Grey Nuns emergency room in December. Jones had said the positions would be added “immediately at the busiest emergency departments in Calgary and Edmonton.” TLPs were meant to work with nurses to expedite assessments, support diagnostics and begin care in the waiting room by Feb. 1. As of mid-October, no TLPs were listed as working in Alberta. But a statement from Acute Care Alberta to CTV News on Thursday said the program was officially ready. “Health service delivery organizations will be inviting emergency medicine physicians to join the program and begin filling TLP shifts in emergency departments across the province,” a spokesperson said. Heidi Fell, the new president of the Alberta Medical Association (AMA), says the eight-month-long wait was because TLP contracts were delayed in part by working out logistics – new payment structure and legal reviews, for example. “This is a new role. You’re in spaces that aren’t designed for care. You don’t know what this means in terms of your medical legal risk. You don’t know how it’s going to work … Once we get the contract done, we will present it to physicians, and then we’ll see what happens from there,” she told CTV News Edmonton. “We are not totally sure if we’re going to have the people, or the desire from emergency doctors to fill these roles.” Paul Parks, an emergency room doctor in Alberta and the former president of the AMA, doesn’t believe the TLP program was a provincial priority given that ERs across the province have “never seen this kind of chaos, (or), putting it bluntly, suffering.” He says delays left ERs in crisis. He also says it’s unclear who should take responsibility, with four new health-related ministers and pillars responsible for continuing care, hospital care, mental health and addiction and primary health in the province. CTV News Edmonton’s request for an interview with the Ministry of Hospital and Surgical Health Services was deferred to Acute Care Alberta. The agency says it expects the new program to be operational within weeks. With files from CTV News Edmonton’s Chelan Skulski
