Ignored

Dr. Amber Hayward Stewart has quit as head of Trenton Memorial’s emergency department. She says QHC’s leadership team isn’t listening to the doctors and nurses at Trenton Memorial Hospital.

Head of Trenton Memorial Emergency department quits

Dr. Amber Hayward Stewart has stepped down as Head of Emergency at Trenton Memoria lHospital over what she describes as “interference” and a “lack of two-way communication” between staff and senior leadership of Quinte Health Care (QHC).

“They don’t really listen to the suggestions of nurses and doctors,” says Dr. Hayward Stewart, who also maintains a family health practice in Picton. “We’ve had a shortage of doctors at Trenton Memorial hospital—part of that is that doctors don’t want to work where they feel that senior leadership isn’t listening. People aren’t as interested to come into a troubled hospital.”

She describes a workplace in which decisions are made elsewhere and imposed upon staff, with little consultation or input.

“It is only a matter of how long people will put up with being ignored,” says Hayward Stewart. “I really hate to leave as chief. I took the job because I believed we had the best department and the best staff. But staff morale now is bad. I hung on only because I didn’t want to make matters worse for the nurses.”

Hayward Stewart says staff shortages have been acute at Trenton Memorial for more than two years. Doctors are compelled to work more shifts and nurses are working longer hours.

“We have nurses now who work 12 hours, but they’ll stay another 6 hours because there isn’t enough staff to come in. That is how loyal they are. But it is not sustainable,” says Hayward Stewart.

Matters came to a head recently while Hayward Stewart was on vacation.

In her absence, she says that fellow doctors felt ‘overzealous’ arm twisting by QHC senior leadership to fill the gaps in the schedule.

“They made it appear as though this was a new crisis,” says Hayward Stewart. “It is the way it has been for many months. But I go away and all hell breaks loose.”

QHC spokesperson Susan Rowe suggests many people would disagree with Dr. Hayward Stewart’s account, but that the hospital corporation wasn’t “entering into a debate with people in current or former staff roles through the Times.”

She agrees that the staffing issues at Trenton Memorial are not new, but suggests the root cause is not with QHC, but rather is a common problem across rural Ontario.

“It has been challenging to find physicians to cover all the shifts for both the TMH and NHH emergency rooms for quite a while, but it has been particularly difficult this summer,” says Rowe. “Many hospitals in rural areas in Ontario are in the same situation this year, so we are not in an unique position.”

“Like QHC, these hospitals use Health- Force Ontario to ensure shifts are covered by qualified ER physicians and our communities continue to have access to emergency care,” Rowe writes in an email to the Times. “The feedback we have received from physicians who do shifts at TMH is that better scheduling (i.e., schedules available six months in advance for the physicians to better plan around) would go a very long way to correcting this situation in Trenton. We are already working on different scheduling solutions to address this feedback.”

Despite stepping down as head of the department, Dr. Hayward Stewart says she will continue to work in Trenton Memorial’s emergency room.

“I am not leaving. They aren’t losing another doc. But I don’t want to be in any more meetings with senior leadership. I’ve had enough.”

She also sees light on the horizon for the department with the arrival of two new physicians this fall.

“Trenton emerg will get through this,” assures Dr. Hayward Stewart. “The nurses and the doctors are the ones doing the work—not the administrators. We will never see that emergency close.”

She is at peace with her decision.

“I will have more time to spend working with patients because I won’t spend as much time in meetings that don’t go anywhere. I see this as a plus.”