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Foreign-trained doctors at odds with new Alberta Health Services contract offers

'We are the best deal in the health-care system. We do physician work for half the cost.'

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A foreign-trained doctor says he and many other clinical assistants working physician shifts in Edmonton-area hospitals will quit and leave Alberta at the end of the year when their contracts expire rather than reapply for new jobs at half the salary.

Dr. Karim Ahmed, 32, said he is meeting Thursday with the Alberta Human Rights Commission, saying the termination of his and about 40 other similar medical contracts Dec. 31, 2015, will put at risk patients in hospitals, where he and other clinical assistants cover night physician shifts.

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“It’s not human,” said Ahmed, who, for the past 2-1/2 years, has worked nights, weekends and holiday shifts at the Sturgeon Hospital in St. Albert, admitting seriously ill patients from emergency into medical wards, doing rounds to check patients, writing prescriptions and ordering tests. He said he’s often the only physician on-site, in charge of 110 to 150 patients.

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Ahmed’s official title is clinical assistant — sometimes called a hospitalist or a physician extender — which means he is supposed to be constantly supervised. Ahmed received his medical degree in Egypt, passed necessary Canadian medical and language exams, as well as an intense six-month evaluation period. He has a limited physician licence and said he currently earns about half what full family doctors earn, or about $150,000 to $200,000.

“We are the best deal in the health-care system,” Ahmed said. “We do physician work for half the cost.”

On Sept. 28, he and about 40 other clinical assistants in the Edmonton area — all foreign trained, Ahmed said — received couriered notices their contracts will end Dec. 31, 2015. In the letters, Alberta Health Services encourages them to reapply in an open competition for 40 new clinical assistant positions, posted on its website, that would make the new hires employees of the health authority, rather than contractors.

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AHS wouldn’t say how much the new clinical assistants will earn.

“Alberta Health Services places great value on the work that clinical assistants and clinical/surgical assistants do across the province, each day. Their work is invaluable to patients, and to our front line staff,” reads a statement from Dr. Verna Yiu, chief medical officer. “It is important to note that (these assistants) are licensed to do clinical work only under the supervision of licensed, independent physician practitioners. This will not change.”

Yiu said current contracts will be honoured and contractors helped during the transition.

“This will also allow AHS to ensure that their skills and expertise can be utilized in areas of need, while ensuring that the care is of high quality.”

Ahmed said he plans to leave Alberta to find work as a doctor in places such as Dubai or Australia.

“It’s very upsetting the way we are treated,” Ahmed said. “We do the shifts that the fully licensed physicians do not do. Our patients just know us as Dr. So-and-So. They don’t even know the difference between us and the other doctors. They don’t know that we get paid differently. To them, we are just a doctor there. We are not very known in the community.”

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Ahmed said the work is critical. St. Albert’s hospital already short of such staff, he said.

“AHS has been putting us under severe stress and trying to cut our salary,” Ahmed said. “I work independently, but they place us in a category to say we need to be supervised. … You are affecting patient safety and patient care by interrupting the delivery of patient care and the quality of experience of those guys working in Canadian hospitals for years and years.”

Ahmed and 28 other foreign-trained physicians are suing AHS for not negotiating the contracts in good faith. Their statement of claim was filed Sept. 3. AHS has not filed a statement of defence.

jsinnema@edmontonjournal.com

twitter.com/jodiesinnema

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