“Staffing and recruiting challenges for a local anesthesia group have come to a head this week at a local hospital,” Debbie Cockrell writes over at The News Tribune of Tacoma, Wash., documenting anesthesia industry problems that we wrote about recently. “St. Joseph Medical Center, part of the Virginia Mason Franciscan Health system, is severing ties with an anesthesia group that serves the hospital, a union spokesman representing hospital workers told The News Tribune on Wednesday. ‘Anesthesia doctors have been leaving for several months. It has impacted patients and the health care workers at St Joe’s,’ Tom Geiger, media representative for UFCW 3000, said in an emailed statement in response to questions. Geiger said that on Wednesday, St. Joseph president Jennifer Schomburg ‘announced that the hospital has terminated their contract with the anesthesia group.’ On Wednesday, two workers connected to the health system told The News Tribune the contract termination was for Pacific Anesthesia. They spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of retaliation. As for what’s next regarding surgeries at St. Joseph, ‘There are a lot of unknowns right now,’ Geiger wrote. ‘We will continue to work to support our members, patients and the community to provide quality, accessible and timely care.’ Kim Moore is interim chief medical officer for VMFH. Moore told The News Tribune in an emailed statement, ‘As with many health care systems in the nation, we have spent considerable time evaluating the best way to stabilize our workforce, including anesthesia services, at St. Joseph Medical Center amid market shifts.’ … St. Joseph isn’t alone in its anesthesia labor crunch. A March 13 report in ClearHealthCosts, a website that focuses on medical costs, offered a report titled, ‘The anesthesiology profession seems to be in crisis.’ The report documented labor pressures among anesthesiologists across the country. … In one example from the report, an anesthesiologist ‘from a small private group that works servicing one hospital in an urban location in Washington state’ told a reporter, ‘We are trying to decide if this group is viable. The hospital is going to offer more money, but is it enough money to start hiring and retaining in a meaningful manner?’ the worker asked.” Debbie Cockrell, “Tacoma hospital’s latest issue: Anesthesia doctors have been leaving for several months,” The News Tribune.
