6th Hull ER doctor quits

Another doctor inthe understaffed emergency ward of Hull hospital has announced her resignation.

Dr. Marie-Charlotte Koenigsaid, in a resignation letter published Friday in Le Droit, thatshewill leave the Gatineau, Que., hospital at the end of the month.

Koenig, the second emergency room doctor to resign in less than a month and the sixth this year, wrote that the emergency room had become dangerous for both patients and staff.

"The lives as well as the quality ofthe livesof our patients are put in danger," she wrote in French.

Koenig, who has worked in Gatineau since 1991, saidmistakes with potential legal consequences were being made due to alack of training, technical means and qualified, experiencedpersonnel.

She ended her letter by calling on the administrators of Gatineau's health agency to give priority to patients, delegate decision-making power to doctors and guarantee better working conditions for staff.

Dr. Marcel Guilbault, one of the directors of a group that represents general practitioners in Quebec, said Koenig is right to warn about the lack of experienced nurses, especially at a designated trauma centre such as Hull hospital, which sees the Outaouais region's most serious cases.

"The doctors there need the support of all personnel and its difficult when the personnel[are] not experienced," said Guilbault, who is with the Fdration des mdecins omnipraticiens du Qubec. "You need fast intervention and you have to know what to do exactly now."

Many physicians are tired of hearing promises from governments that generally have noteased the hospital overcrowding problem, he said.

Officials at the Hull hospital said they might comment on Koenig's resignation later Friday.

Meanwhile, Quebec Health Minister Phillippe Couillard said it is up to the region's health officials to find a solution to its doctor retention problems.

"Tell us first what else we can do, and we'll do it," he told CBC's French-language service, Radio-Canada.

Dr. Michael Taylor, who also worked at Hull hospital, announced in mid-August that he was leaving the region.

The hospital has been plagued by staff shortages.

Since the beginning of the year, two other emergency doctors have left the hospital for reasons similar to those cited by Koenig, while two others have left for personal reasons.

A maninjured in a motorcycle crash died earlier this month whenno surgeon was available at the Hull hospital, forcing him to be transferred to Ottawa.