By Samantha Craggs, CBC News
Posted: Apr 17, 2013 7:04 AM ET
Last Updated: Apr 17, 2013 1:56 AM ET
Fed up with problems with Newfoundland's health care system, one of that province's best-known doctors is coming to Hamilton.
Lydia Hatcher, former president of the Newfoundland and Labrador Medical Association, is heading to the Steel City to practice medicine. A family physician in Newfoundland for 31 years, she expects to become chief of family medicine at a local hospital, although the new posting is still being finalized.
She will also teach pain management at McMaster University.
Hatcher is upfront — she has family in Ontario, which influenced her decision. But she stayed in Newfoundland for years after family members moved to Ontario because she loves the province and her patients.
But "I finally got tired of trying," Hatcher said in a letter, which she sent to the CBC. "Tired of seeing cutbacks, unsafe policies and lack of support in so many facets of health care, but in particular for patients with chronic pain."
Hatcher takes issue with what she describes as systematic frustrations — the province's lack of an electronic medical record, wait lists of two years for colonoscopies despite a vital demand, the inability to prescribe drugs that are safer and less addictive because they are not covered by the province's health care system.
Newfoundland is one of the few provinces that doesn't have an electronic medical record, which means doctors still rely on paper files to keep track of patients, Hatcher said.
The need was addressed in a 2009 inquiry report into the province's health care system, but nothing has been done, she said.
"I think the government is really short sighted about some of the needs that need to be addressed," she told CBC Hamilton.
Hatcher held off on moving to Ontario for years because of her love of Newfoundland, where she has lived since she was 11. But now that she's moving here, she's joining some loved ones.
Her daughter and grandchild live in Kingston. Her siblings also live in Ontario. She looks forward to carving a new niche in chronic pain consulting and counseling in Ontario, and to teaching at McMaster, which she's visited several times.
She will close her Newfoundland practice on June 28.
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