Doctors at a cash-strapped hospital in the Kootenays are proposing to pay nurses out of their own pockets to keep operating rooms running.
Seventeen surgeons at Kootenay-Boundary Regional Hospital are fighting the Interior Health Authority's recent move to reduce nursing staff hours. They plan to pay nurses themselves to maintain services in all four of the hospital's operating rooms.
"In order to save things, we are willing to go this far," anesthesiologist Ian Grant said.
The proposed move by surgeons and anesthetists, however, is not an act of charity. "Orthopedic surgeons and anesthesiologists, for example, would increase their revenues if they paid nurses to stay on staff," Dr. Grant said.
Hospital administration cut three full-time operating-room nursing positions this week to reduce costs. If the cuts go as planned, one of four operating rooms will close, fewer surgical procedures will be conducted each week and patient waiting times will increase as early as next week.
According to health service administrator Frank Marino, the hospital's latest cost-reducing measures are unavoidable because of its overextended budget.
"We do need the O.R. nurses but we had to look at reducing the amount of paid hours in the operating room," Mr. Marino said. "We've struggled to stay within our budget so we are trying to get to a financial place that we can maintain."
For Dr. Grant and his colleagues, budgetary cuts to the hospital's operating rooms will severely hamper doctors' ability to provide medical care to the nearly 80,000 people in the Kootenay-Boundary region.
"It's all about budgeting and we are losing out over what seems like pennies," said Giselle Keenan, a nurse who lost her full-time position Monday.
Kootenay-Boundary is one of four hospitals under the Interior Health Authority's jurisdiction. Tight provincial funding in recent years has forced hospitals in the Interior and elsewhere in the province to reduce services, including staffing and operations.
Whether Kootenay-Boundary's surgeons and anesthetists will be permitted to pay the wages of the hospital's O.R. nurses is still in question.
"I haven't heard of any precedent like this," Mr. Marino said. "In terms of the implications, the Interior Health Authority has to do some research."
