Date Published | April 20, 2007

Red Lake Margaret Cochenour Memorial Hospital serves a population of approximately 5,000 people in the town of Red Lake, 555 kilometres west of Thunder Bay and 475 kilometres east of Winnipeg.

There are no obstetricians in the community and the next nearest hospital is in Dryden, a three-hour drive away, so Red Lake’s four GPs, along with the hospital’s RNs are responsible for delivering babies.

To make sure they minimize risks and provide the best possible quality of obstetrics care to the community, Red Lake Hospital signed on to the Society of Obstetricians and Gynecologists of Canada’s MOREOB professional development program in October.

The MOREOB program provides advanced learning in obstetrics, helps nurses and physicians work together as a team and gives them the opportunity to practice emergencies and drills, said chief nursing officer Debbie Larson.

Training began in October 2006 with a core team and was rolled out to the remaining participants in January. The computer-based learning model was ideal for Red Lake because of the tremendous cost of sending people out of the community for a conventional training program. “One flight to Toronto for us is $1,200,” said Larson.

“Low-risk obstetrics is what we’re doing, but things can go wrong in the middle of a delivery and that’s why we want to make sure we’re on top of it.”

The town’s GPs are required to carry extra insurance for delivering babies, but on the plus side, it adds to the variety of their work, said Larson. “You can get pretty bored seeing runny noses after a while, so it’s something that can actually attract physicians to your community.”

There was no special funding from the Ministry of Health and Long Term Care to purchase the MOREOB program, but the hospital did get a break on its insurance premium.

MOREOB paid off almost immediately when the first baby born following the commencement of the program in January was a breech delivery. Doctors and nurses knew exactly what to do, and the birth was a complete success.

The Red Lake Hospital delivers approximately 50 babies a year.

www.redlakehospital.ca