Although six international doctors have been recruited to Sundre over the last two years, there are still not enough doctors qualified to deliver babies in Sundre around the clock.
ìIt's frustrating actually,î said Ashley Christensen who is expecting her first child in May.
ìIt would be nice to have the security of knowing that in your own hometown you can have your child and not have to worry about having the go-around.î
Of the six doctors, only four have taken the required training to be certified for obstetrics in Canada.
ìIt's nice to have six doctors that have their obstetrics qualifications, so that you can have that 24/7. Right now we only have four,î said Gerald Ingeveld, chair of the Sundre Health Professionals Attraction and Retention Committee. ìSo what we end up with is four doctors who have their insurance up and have their training for obstetrics, so they're taking turns being on call.î
There is a person on call for obstetrics ìmost of the timeî, he said.
ìThere will be the odd, maybe a Sunday, or one day during the week, where there isn't obstetrics covered,î he said. ìSo in that case then, if a person goes into labour on that particular day, we would take the person to Olds to deliver there.î
It is currently unknown when there will be 24-hour obstetrics care at the Sundre Hospital and Care Centre.
There are a number of factors contributing to this, according to Ingeveld.
One of the six doctors came to Sundre from South Africa and four of them came from the U.K., and they have to be trained in Canada to deliver babies. Ingeveld believes the required course is two months long.
ìWhen they came (to Sundre) they immediately took their emergency room upgrades so that they could qualify for the emergency room,î said Ingeveld.
The doctors don't get paid while they are in training, and the emergency room courses took two to four weeks to complete, he noted.
ìBut then for them to go another two full months to get the obstetrics training ñ it was just too much for them right away. They had to get settled in town and get going on their practices,î he said.
ìThe other thing is we're not sure where they would even go to get that kind of coverage,î he admitted.
ìIn Red Deer right now they're not taking obstetric students because they have enough graduate students that they have to work on, so they're not even taking any doctors for that.î
There are currently enough qualified doctors for 24-hour emergency care at the hospital.
If a doctor is on call for obstetrics services they don't get paid, however, if they are on call for emergency services, they do, he added.
He said there is a possibility that 24-hour obstetrics care might not ever exist again in Sundre.
ìAHS (Alberta Health Services) is starting to take a look at obstetrics too and there is a study going on now in Alberta wondering how many babies should you be delivering annually before you have an obstetrics ward,î he explained.
ìSo there is a question whether that will even continue at all in the small hospitals.î
The committee is hoping to bring another doctor to Sundre, and would prefer a doctor that is already trained in Canada, he said.
He added that in some hospitals, such as the one in Rocky Mountain House, there are midwives that work with doctors.
ìThat might be the future of baby delivering in the small hospitals too,î he said.
