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By Jim Kelly - The Chronicle Journal
Thursday, August 14, 2008
 A
Thunder Bay emergency room physician is one of two doctors
in Ontario named as recipients of the prestigious Sir Charles
Tupper Award for Political Action.
This is the first time the Canadian Medical Association (CMA)
has recognized two physicians in one year.
According to the CMA, Dr. Andrew Affleck of Thunder Bay Regional
Health Sciences Centre and Dr. Alan Drummond of Perth were
honoured for “their tireless efforts to educate government,
policymakers and the public and to advance healthy public
policy.”
Affleck has worked tirelessly to change public opinion about
the emergency department overcrowding crisis. It was Affleck,
in the mid-1990s, who was concerned about the lack of physicians
providing trauma coverage in hospitals in Thunder Bay and
the region. He decided to do something about it.
The CMA noted that Affleck worked with municipal leaders,
local MPPs and the provincial health minister to establish
a community development officer to recruit doctors. This became
a model for underserviced sites in Ontario and other provinces.
“The understated leadership of both Dr. Affleck and
Dr. Drummond, their hard work and their unwavering commitment
to advocate at both the federal and provincial level in pushing
for critical improvements in the emergency department are
a model for others to emulate,” said CMA president Dr.
Brian Day.
Affleck said overcrowding in the emergency department was
the single most important barrier to providing proper patient
care. “The issue had grown to the point where the effects
were experienced on literally every shift,” he said.
“The impact affected not only emergency department care,
but admitted patients and was the main contributor to physicians
and nurses leaving the department. “I enjoy the work
I do and simply wanted to be an advocate for the patients
and the emergency department staff and make a contribution
that would change the ED environment,” Affleck said.
He served as president (from 2004-06) of the Canadian Association
of Emergency Physicians (CAEP) and under his leadership the
organization showed that emergency department overcrowding
was the direct result of drastic reductions in bed capacity.
Affleck‘s lobbying of politicians and health policy
experts led to the addition of emergency department wait times
to the Ontario Wait Times Strategy and the national Wait Times
Alliance.
Because of Affleck‘s efforts, emergency room overcrowding
became an election issue in Ontario.
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