The Chatham-Kent Health Alliance will soon be shopping out its urology work.
Dr. Valdis Pakulis is retiring at the end of December, while Dr. Charles Williams is set to fade out of the picture sometime next year.
“I’m not sure if he’s retiring or going back to Newfoundland,” said Sarah Padfield, CKHA’s chief operating officer. “He said he is going to wind it up sometime in 2015.”
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The pending retirement of the alliance’s only urologists leaves Padfield and the rest of administration with some difficult decisions. One option is to try to recruit replacements, but it is likely the alliance is going a different route.
“One of the things with the change in health care is we can’t be everything for everyone,” she said. “We have to look at how to create a program that enhances services rather than necessarily replace staff.”
To that extent, Padfield said the CKHA is working on developing a regional model that supports Chatham-Kent with a group of Sarnia-Lambton urologists.
“It’s one those situations where we ask, ‘Do we invest in orthopedics, which we have in the past number of years, or do we invest in this?’ Our volumes are low,” she said of urology usage locally. “The big thing is to make sure the emergency department has urology support. Sarnia’s urology department will cover this.”
She said details are being finalized on how it will work.
“Three urologists do a great job up there. We just don’t have the resources or the volume to support that type of service,” she said. “We’re working on having them cover emergency calls. They’ll likely come and do some clinics here, provide access to services and do some video conferencing.”
That will likely mean urgent-needs patients will face trips to Sarnia-Lambton.
“We’ll still have the service, but it will depend on the urgency. If they (patients) need to be seen fairly quickly, they’d likely have to travel up to Sarnia.”
That would include people suspected of having prostate cancer.
But Padfield said the Sarnia urologists have committed to very short wait times, likely three-to-five days.
“That’s really quick access to services,” she said.
Chatham is surrounded by strong urology options, she added. In Windsor, the region has developed a men’s health program. In London, St. Joseph’s is a centre of excellence.
“It’s pretty hard to compete with these services when they surround you,” Padfield said.
