Following a temporary stop of MAID consult services in March 2024, hospitalists have resumed the service. However, the hospitalist shortage continues due to difficulty recruiting and retaining, retirements, part-time hospitalists devoting more time to office work, and increased hospital occupancy and workload.
Growing waitlist
Resolving this for the long-term means more hospitalists or less occupancy. Neither will be quick or easy to achieve, so any of your patients seeking MAID will likely find a growing waitlist.
MAID assessment: not difficult and does not include provision
If you are interested in learning how to do the assessment portion of the consult for your patients, before referring them for MAID provision, please know that it is not difficult.
If you have not done a MAID assessment before you can learn the process and access background information on the PHSA learning hub here. You need to create an account and search “MAID”. These modules will give you a good grounding in MAID law and practice. A more extensive, CME-accredited national training over seven courses is available from CAMAP (Canadian Association of MAID Assessors and Providers) here.
The Island Health MAID program can also arrange local shadowing and mentoring for interested physicians.
Refer to the MAID Coordination Centre
If you have a patient who is requesting MAID and you have done as much in terms of assessments as you can, please continue to refer them to the MAID Coordination Centre. Within the coordination centre, we will prioritize cases based on acuity, not location.
If you have questions, please contact Island Health’s MAID Medical Director, Dr. W. David Robertson, at [email protected] or 250-715-8277.
submitted by Dr. W. David Robertson, Medical Director, Island Health MAID program
