Physicians eager to return to practice in Fort McMurray after historic blaze

Fort McMurray, Alta. | Nearly one month after one of the largest wildfires in Canadian history tore through Fort McMurray, the population is slowly returning. Many community doctors have gotten out in front of the masses, returning to clean up and open their clinics. Others have been there for weeks, long before official evacuation order was ever lifted.The hospital and clinics in town—many of which are located in the downtown area—were spared from the blaze."The emergency department is running probably at about half capacity right now but we're back in the hospital," said Dr. Brian Dufresne, the chief of the emergency department at the Northern Lights Hospital.The inpatient sections of the hospital including the ICU haven't yet opened, nor has the OR. Dozens of acute and continuing care patients who were airlifted to Edmonton will return in stages over the next two to four weeks. But the lab services and the EMRs are back online.On Monday May 9, Dr. Dufresne and several other hospital-based doctors had returned to Fort McMurray, working 19-hour days out of temporary clinics to tend to those who were setting up other key infrastructure in the otherwise empty city. Part of their responsibility was to get the hospital back in working order."There was no direct fire damage but there is smoke and water damage from attempts to prevent it from burning," Dr. Dufresne said.He said that before the emergency department could reopen, everything that was disposable or exposed to smoke had to be replaced. "Every square inch of the department had to be washed down; ceiling tiles or anything else that could have absorbed the smoke had to be replaced," said Dr. Dufresne. "So that same process is going to have to occur in all the other departments. It's just a question of systematically going through the hospital."Finding doctors to staff the hospital has been less difficult than ensuring they have a place to work. Dr. Dufresne said several doctors and nurses had lost their houses but, as far as he knew, everyone had plans to return. In most cases the bigger challenge would be finding places for them to stay while the city was being rebuilt.The community doctorsDr. Padraic McCombe is a family doctor belonging to four-member group practice in the neighbourhood of Thickwood. He was one of about five family doctors who opted to return to Fort McMurray early this week to open their clinics as soon as the official evacuation order lifted."Our business insurance didn't cover us for more than a month of business interruptions so there were sort of the economic reasons for returning," he said, "but we really wanted to be back so when patients did need to come see us we would be open and ready."There were the banal tasks to carry out: fridges to be emptied and hundreds of pages of faxes to be sorted through. Missed patient appointments needed to be reviewed and follow-ups arranged. Many staff members had difficulties getting permission to bring their spouses and pets back into the city and so one of the other physicians enlisted the help of his adult children to help run the clinic."By the middle of June we hope to have our full staff back," Dr. McCombe said. "We've got about half of them now."Dr. McCombe's home wasn't damaged in the blaze but there was an obvious sign that one had come close: a kilometre-long firebreak that was bulldozed through the trees behind his property.His family has yet to return since they left the city together. His wife, a provincial court judge, is currently working out of Edmonton where Fort McMurray-based cases will continue to be heard for the next few weeks. One of his sons has enrolled in school in the Edmonton suburb of Spruce Grove while the other is playing competitive soccer in the area.Currently Dr. McCombe is in the city alone but has no problems making the four-hour drive back to Edmonton to see his family when he's not in the clinic."He's got some soccer games that I want to see..."

Physicians eager to return to practice in Fort McMurray after historic blaze

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