April Messenger 2020

Table of contents

Medical Matters

A Message from Your Council

Keep your information up-to-date on our COVID-19 Physician Registry

From Field Law: COVID-19 + The Duty to Report

Lois Hole Hospital for Women COVID-19 Prenatal and Postnatal Clinic

Thank you, physicians!

This month CPSA will use The Messenger to share information related to COVID-19. All other articles, unless time-sensitive, will be delayed until the pandemic has ended.

Keep your information up-to-date on our COVID-19 Physician Registry

If your status changes during the pandemic, please update your response

To do our part to support the response to COVID-19, CPSA was asked by AHS and AH to organize a central registry for physicians to self-report their ability to provide clinical services during the pandemic:

Please take 5 minutes to update your status in the Physician Portal

The information you provide will be shared with Alberta Health Services to:

• streamline communication,
• identify where support and resources are needed, and
• coordinate Alberta’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

The information you provide will NOT be used:

• To track your personal health condition
• To hold you accountable for not being able to provide services
• For any CPSA disciplinary process

Please review our Frequently Asked Questions for more details.

Your information will only be used to help coordinate care during the pandemic.

For assistance or technical issues with the survey, please contact CPSA at info@cpsa.ab.ca, or by phone at 780-969-5022.

Thank you for your willingness to help us by providing this information. We value and appreciate the difficult and incredibly important work you’re doing to help Albertans. Please know that your ongoing commitment, hard work and dedication to providing excellent patient care has not gone unnoticed.

Lois Hole Hospital for Women COVID-19 Prenatal and Postnatal Clinic

An important COVID-19 related message from AHS for Edmonton Zone family physicians and obstetricians

The Royal Alexandra Hospital’s Lois Hole Hospital for Women opened a COVID-19 Prenatal and Postnatal Clinic on Monday, March 30, 2020, to provide support for this patient population who are unable to see their provider in current clinic spaces.

The new referral-based ambulatory clinic is for prenatal and postnatal women in the Edmonton Zone who are 24 gestational weeks or greater and require a prenatal visit while on self-isolation who are: asymptomatic self-isolating, symptomatic COVID-19 suspect, or COVID-19 positive.

Referred patients who meet the criteria will be seen at the clinic for the duration of their self-isolation, then will resume care with their original referring healthcare provider. The clinic was created to help obstetrical providers in the Edmonton Zone reduce the risk of COVID-19 transmission in their family and obstetrical clinic spaces.

For additional information on the Lois Hole Hospital for Women’s COVID-19 Prenatal and Postnatal Clinic, frequently asked questions, and referral form, please use the below links:

Read the AHS memo

Access the referral form

Thank you, physicians!

Dear Doctors:

I am a student at a Junior High school in St. Albert, Alberta. I am aware that COVID-19 is very infectious, and lots of people are able to stay home out of the danger zone while doctors do not have that luxury and have to go out into the line of fire to help other people. For this, I applaud you and appreciate your sacrifice.

On behalf of everyone in Alberta, thank you for staying at your jobs even in the midst of this pandemic and coming to work to help patients who need help to stay alive. I know that every day you go to work, you are putting yourself and your family in danger. For this, I commend your courage and bravery. The doctors alone are the people who can help us stop this virus by keeping our loved ones from dying and helping to find a vaccine before others get the virus as well. I also know that you are now working with limited resources that would have helped you in saving people. Some people would use limited resources as an excuse, but doctors are different. You keep working through all of the hurdles and obstacles that stand in your path to help others. You even have to work with the fear that you will not only infect yourself, but your whole family as well. I think that this is a very altruistic thing to do; something that many people would rather not do. I am very glad to have people like you in my community and province to help us stay alive. I know that you can’t do everything by yourself, but you are doing more than your share to help us survive during this pandemic. My family and I are committed to doing our small part by following all your recommendations to limit the spread of this virus.

Thank you again for going above and beyond just being doctors and becoming the front line in defending our province from an all out pandemic. I am very glad that we have so many heroes in this province to help keep us safe, not only from this disease, but also from others like this in the future. At times like this, you are the true saviors of the human race, and I am very glad that the world has people like you to rely on.

Sincerely,
Edward C.

Physicians who wish to write back to Edward can email messenger@cpsa.ab.ca.