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EXCLUSIVE
Top doctor resigns over ER move Tom Zytaruk Now staff Twitter @tomzytaruk
SURREY — The director of Surrey Memorial Hospital’s intensive care unit has resigned his post in protest because the emergency department doctors are refusing to provide Code Blue service to ICU patients in cardiac arrest. “I’ve resigned my position because I couldn’t agree with the way the medical administration at Fraser Health was responding to the ultimatum by the emergency doctors to withdraw the coverage of Code Blue services, physician Code Blue coverage, at Surrey hospital,” Dr. Grant McCormack said in an exclusive interview with the Now. A Code Blue is a system of last resort. It’s called when a patient is in cardiac or pulmonary arrest. “In other words, that person is dying, suddenly,” McCormack explains. We’ve all seen it on TV, if not in real life: A medical team giving it all they’ve got to revive someone. “I don’t think most of the physicians in the hospital realize the risk their patients are potentially being exposed to and I certainly don’t think the people of Surrey, who just got this brand new hospital, built with the expressed purpose of building a new emergency department and having lots of emergency staff, realize that if they come to Surrey hospital right now and are admitted as patients, they potentially will not have a physician to support them if they have a cardiac arrest,” McCormack said. “My understanding is that in time they’re going to extend this threat of not covering Code Blues to the rest of the hospital. “Until this gets sorted out, as to how Fraser Health and how this hospital wants to move forward with how Code Blue coverage is covered, I think that the immediate thing the hospital should do is demand that the emergency physicians continue to cover Code Blue for the time being, and not put patients at risk,” he said. Dr. Craig Murray, clinical director of the emergency department, and SMH medical director Dr. Urbain Ip,
Dr. Grant McCormack has resigned as director of Surrey Memorial Hospital’s intensive care unit. (Photo: JACOB ZINN)
I’ve resigned my position because I couldn’t agree with the way the medical administration at Fraser Health was responding to the ultimatum by the emergency doctors to withdraw the coverage of Code Blue services, physician Code Blue coverage, at Surrey hospital.
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